


Fifteen days and one night

by AlexKrenin



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:52:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexKrenin/pseuds/AlexKrenin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm's health slowly degrades to very close to the point of no return. Facing weakness forces him to let go of barriers and walls he spent most of his life building around himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day one -  Silence

 

 

**Day one : silence.**

 

 

At 7.45 am, tuesday morning, Terri has mistaken a fresh Daily Mail newshound for one of the new IT interns and just handed over her whole fucking laptop to the press git. Who might have been lenient, if she hadn't treated him like her dead auntie's last smear test. The shitbrained fucking blunder balloon had the man sitting on front of her laptop and demanded repairs with a snap and the best scorn she could manage to produce, and fuck knows she could.

 

The guy literally raped her mail archive. Twice, with fucking sandpaper and pepperoni sauce.

 

 

Once she figured out the shit she was in, she howled like a fucking WWII air raid siren. They all got it, full blown. I bet she shrieked their brains to fucking minestrone for hours.

 

 

And yet, at 8.30 exactly, when Malcolm Tucker barges in, black suit, red eyes, Blackberry charged, fingers pointed and voice thick with deep, wild hatred, all sounds cease.

 

I close the door behind him. He has cut himself short mid-sentence to glance at the flying circus array of shitpot faces gawking at him. I know and he knows. Someone has fucked up. I have those mixed feelings, you see, where I feel bloody _tired_ for him, and yet, fuck that, the insane bollocking slaughterhouse cabaret show is gonnae be fun.

 

- « Allright, cankerfaces, spit it out » I sneer, already laughing, with as much teeth as I can.

 

 

After ten seconds of funeral silence, only Glenn fucking Cullen has the guts to speak up. Go figure.

 

 

There's a law between me and him, y' see? He never said it but it's fucking engraved in stone. He always gets the first shot. When the meat is caught, trapped and sweating in front of him between a high shelf and a printer, he gets the first bite. Pecking order. Only natural.

 

So I shut it and wait.

 

 

But I only get silence.

 

 

**8.36, tuesday morning, Malcolm Tucker says nothing.**

 

 

He just closes his eyes, and, fuck, he looks so tired.

I feel more than see his shoulders drop an inch. I feel it like a punch in my guts. Panic rises and falls within seconds in my head, _something's wrong, something's fucking wrong._

 

 

He says nothing.

 

 

He turns and looks at me, beckoning with a nod towards his office, and walks past them dumbfounded horsecock morons without a fucking word.

 

 

I close the office door behind him again, as from the crowd of morons slowly rise fearful whispers. For them, Malcolm's silence do only mean death sentence. To me, two things: one,  my favourite fucking candy has been snatched away from my hand, and two - _direct inference from point one_ \- : something is **fucking wrong**.

-"Malc?

 

He's dropping his coat on the back of an armchair and turns towards me the saddest, empiest works of stained glass his eyes have ever been.

  
I point the door of rising whispers behind me and hiss:

-"The fuck, Malc? You're letting that bunch o'fistfuckers get away with that? Then what? Yae gonnae kiss them and cuddle? What are you...

 

He raises a very slow, very delicate hand. I love his hands. They are a fucking wonder. Always look too frail to get a hold of anything, and yet they grip collars, wrists, sheets and throats with deadly force.

-"Saving energy" he grumbles. "That's what I'm doing. I'm fucking concerned with the future of the planet, son. Can't waste my bollocking, it's fossil fuel. I'll need it to scare the shit out of that Daily mail breastfed cunt anyways."

 

Ah. Fucking familiar ground at last.

-"He's a wee babby. If fuckup hurricane Coverley hadn't taken a shit on his shoes, he wouldn't have dared to peek at the mailing archive even with a fucking glittering "come and taste the gossip" sign. You'll have him crying to momma before lunchtime."

 

I smile then, the best I can, but my reflection on his window tells me 'serial killer' anyways. I drop the smile. Half reading one and half signing another, he rummages through the piles of papers Sam left for him. 

  
-" If it's schoolboy homework then do it." He mutters without looking at me."Bark. Scare the child. Don't stop until you see shit on his fucking Converse. I'll skip three levels up and use my magic directly on Chief Editor Paul Dacre. I've got a few pictures of that goatsucker he wouldn't like me to send to the fucking Sun. Won't work forever, but that'll do the trick once more."

He calls Sam, and she comes in, more papers in hand. He never actually greets her, shakes her hand or even touches her, but there's always that sweeter look he has for her, with sometimes one step closer, or one hand dancing in her direction. That's his way of liking her. That's emotional shipwreck Tucker for you ladies and gentlemen. Never speak, never show.

 

Not that I'm hoping for anything, eh. Nah. I don't even love the auld fucker. I just enjoy being around. The shagging, it's fringe benefit. My hand in his hair when he sleeps, it's sheer boredom. My suits in his closet, it's fucking foresight.

  
The endless, burning worry in my guts when he's tired like that...

Well, _fuck off._

 

 

 

 

Hey, why didn't he move towards Sam ?

No sweeter face, nothing at all. _Something's wrong_ , panic sings in my head again. _Something's wrong, very wrong._

 

She brings the papers and stares for a while, looking a wee bit heartbroken. Then she freezes and frowns, tilting her head to the side to get a better view of his face. Oblivious, he signs, and slowly dictates a to-do list longer than the fucking First Testament. Sam and me share a glance. She asks in silence and I shrug. Nope. No clue.

 

True. He was quite okay this morning. Slept all right. Four hours and a half. Luxury night. I didn't even bother him with a handjob.

Though, I remember now, he was cold. He shivered even with me wrapped around him up to suffocation point. Well he's so fucking thin, white skin stretched around his bones like Labour Party Nosferatu. The fucker eats no fucking thing, no wonder he got nothing to burn, right?

  
If Sam followed my thoughts she didn't show. But, bold in her moves as always, good girl, she softly places her hand on his forehead.

 

Bolting up as if she was a fucking ten kilovolt power station, he draws two steps back and hisses like a cat, his furious red-rimmed eyes on us both.

  
-"Malcolm, you're burning up" she reasons very gently, as to calm down a madman with a gun.

A flash of pure terror darkens his face for a second, quickly replaced by Scowl and Anger #4, by Tucker Studios.

 

-"I'm fucking fine. Off you go. Get me Dacre on the line. And you!" he spits towards me, "Shitstorm on Converse shoes. Now."

 

The look on his face bears no questioning. Oh, great. Shields up, barriers raised, no admittance. The old Tucker anthem again. He resolutely switches on the news on pissed-of-loud and pointedly ignores us. It's like the sound of a heavy door closed right in front of your face, I fucking hate that. My worry instantly turns into hurt, then into blind anger, and I storm to the door with a shrug of dismissal. Sam follows close behind and grabs my sleeve the instant she closes the door.

-"How long since the fever came?" She asks.

I shrug again. I'm good at shrugging.

-"No idea. Two days? Didn't look serious until today."

She bites her finger and stares at the closed door. With a huff, I pat her shoulder and pull out my best wink. The one I keep for me wee lasses when they get nightmares.

  
   
-"I'll keep an eye on the fucker".

 

Yea. You bet I'll do.

We get the mailing archive blunder sorted out before lunch. And after that comes the relative peace of policy brainstorming,  where Nicola basically throws ideas on the table for five hours, and everyone happily agrees with her, until Malcolm destroys the concept and its two next of kin with 35 seconds of gross swearing, rape metaphors and, sadly, absolute truths.

 

Everything goes just fine: he does make Terri cry twice and throws a stapler at Ollie's head. The wee fucker bleeds on his Macbook so hard the R key doesn't work anymore. What a laugh.

Nothing weird, except two things : One, he does not get up from his chair the whole thing long. Five hours. Not even to erase or draw dicks on Nicola's figures on the whiteboard.  Though God knows he loves to do that. Two, he sways a little when he finally gets up from that chair, but my hand is on his back in a second and nobody sees shit. When everyone has fucked off I put the back of my hand on his forehead and nearly get me fucking second-degree burns.  
He hisses like a fucking dragon, then, and pushes me away with supernatural strength. He says nothing but the stained glass eyes are clear on the subject: if I dare one more move of that kind, we're in for a fucking fight. I don't think I've seen one single day without this fucker being locked behind his oh-so-dear walls of anger and vemon. _Oh, allright, old twat, do as you please, I'll be there to pick you up when you fucking collapse._

 

Which - _strangely_ \- doesn't happen.

 

 

We get back home - _his, because closest, cleanest, and biggest_ \- and then again, nothing weird, except two things.

One, he pliantly accepts my microwave pizza meal, where he usually takes two bites and throws the rest away screaming abuse. That's an open door.

Two, right before his paracetamol and bed, eyes closed upon a single tear of pure exhaustion, he blindly reaches for my hand, brings it to his lips and kisses it twice. Softly. Fucking reverently. That is a fucking first. But before I can ask why the fuck, he falls asleep with what can only be a whimper.

 

I'll have no more of him today.

 

Well I'll keep him warm then. Yea. I swear to God I won't let go of that fucking old lanky cunt one bloody second. That's what I'll do.

 


	2. Day two -  Pain

 

  


 

**Day two : pain.**

  


  


The next morning, after five hours he spent burning between dead-sleep and fucking epilepsy of moans and shivers, he tears his eyelids open, and the sight of the disgusting yellow glue pasted at the corners of his eyes makes me fucking sick.

  


-”Don't get up, Malc.” I whisper, trying my luck. “ You're a mess. Don't go.”

  


My hand on his throbbing temple, slapped away again.

One more hiss, slurred and croaky.

  


He gets up in what looks like fucking agony, and walks to the bathroom. When he gets out, I very nearly gape at the magic, for he almost looks normal. There's just the eyes, soaked in pain and violent shades of red, and the voice.

Nothing big, just more gravel and crow calls in his throat, I even find that sexier at first. But there's something bruised and worried in his everyday permanent frown, something wary and hurt in his hoarse sentences.

  


I'm shouted at and punched off every time I tell him to fucking stay at home and call a fucking medic, and I stop counting at seven times. Story of our lives, Malc, eh?

Malcolm Tucker is a fortress, you see. And a fucking big one. 

He set the first stone on his second day on the job. Twenty-five years ago. He's been fucking efficient since then. _Fucking meticulous_. There was already pretty much of a fort around him in 1995, when his first and only wife left him 50 percent of the furniture and a note saying he's married to his job. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Well good fucking riddance, bitch. He never loved you anyways. The best of his smiles were already for me. I was just waiting for you to fuck off so I could step in.

Well, I had to circle around, and fucking _besiege_ Fortress Malcolm. I had to fight, I had to wait. I had to shout, I had to beg.

 

One night, election night 1997, seven years ago, the drawbridge fell down. His fucking perfect eyes lowered, with one sign of his hands and half a smile, he let me in.

Even though he's been mine ever since, the fucker kept on building. You'd think He kept on building around us, right? Hah. You wish. I'm kicked out three times a fucking day. And from the outside, year after year, I can marvel every day at the fucking amazing Citadel he has become, thicker walls and deeper ditches, and silently wonder how the fuck I'll get back in.

  
  

At nine am, the soreness has become what looks like a handful of fucking shrapnel down his throat at every word. Not even mentioning swallowing anything but coffee, which doesn't help with the food issue. Or the general mood.

  


At noon, he refuses even fruit. I shout, he shouts -tediously- louder. I threaten, he shrugs. I mock, he sneers.

I beg.

He eats half an orange with rancour in his eyes.

 

At a quarter to three, because Malcolm is Malcolm,  he begins to use his handicap to his advantage. He stops shouting and starts using slow, dangerously quiet rumbles. Doesn't work well on the phone, but I'm there for a reason aren't I?

  


It does fucking wonders face to face though, especially with Nicola, who, for her first fucking time in months, learns her lines in one and only slow dictation from Malcolm's undead voice and does not even dare to roll eyes once.

She suspects something though, I see that. She uses glasses and mirrors to look at him unnoticed, a frown of worry tainted with fear on her face. Eventually, scared away by his grimy red eyes and the crow calls in his voice, she gives up around four, and yae see Nic'la, that's the difference between you and me, sweetheart, no matter how much in love you are with him, and I know you are, you piss-brained boring mass of hysteria.

  


I never give up.

  
Walls high, ditches deep, dragons in the dungeons and archers on the battlements. 

 

I never give up.

  


Even though he's giving me fucking hell, growing more furious by the hour, driven mad by fever and what must be fucking agony whenever he tries to swallow or raise his voice.  
Even though he seems to genuinely hate me now, after my four failures at making him eat and six at making him sit the fuck down.

  


At ten to five, he hides in the toilets just to close his eyes. Dizzy, he nearly collapses, one knee on the floor, and I get one of his nastiest elbow punches for following in and trying to help him up.

-"Fuck off, you Motherwell inbred twat ! " he croaks. “If I wanted a fucking dog, I'd go and buy one. Maybe I should try. Would be an intellectual shift in conversations."

  


  
-"Yeah right, scarecrow, go on, try to impress me while you're holding onto me to stop collapsing on the gents toilets floor tiles like a fucking OD'ed junkie."

  


Cut to the quick, he twists away from my grip, leans down to grab the edge of the sink, turning his back to look at me through the wide, clean mirror. His voice, dripping poison, purrs gently :

  
-" Oh, and you'd know what you're talking about, right? "

  


Ow. Low punch. Painful flashes of memories come back in a blur. Seminary didn't do me any good. Any escape was welcome. If he hadn't followed me in the gents that night...I remember his arms, fuck, he's always been so thin, and yet so strong. He was, what? Twenty-five? He howled at me. Half of it in fucking gaelic. He made me puke with his own fingers down my throat and we never talk about this.

He really, _really_ wants me to go away.

  


Inside his thickest walls, the King of the fortress is weakening. Panicked, he sent orders for all towers to be filled with spears and arrows, so that from the outside, he looks still strong.

And I'm here down below, under fucking hellfire attack, calling at the door.

 

 

But screw yourself, Malcolm Tucker.  You can give me your vampire eyes through the mirror, you can show teeth and growl, I'm not backing down, you fucking mess of a man. What's inside your fortress is fucking mine, get that? Mine. I fought for it. I fucking faced death for it. I did it thousands of times before and I'll fucking do it again.

  
I'll be right next to you or I'll be fucking dead.

I don't even bother with a reply. I just nod towards his hands. He follows my eyes. They're trembling. His deathgrip on the sink is not enough. He's shivering all over and he's white as a fucking corpse.

-"You're sick, Malc."

  


-"I'm fine. I'm allergic to IQ's lower than my fucking shoesize, that's all. Fuck off. You got work to do."

-" It's getting worse. Your magic tricks may work for a while, but they'll notice sooner or later. So much for Invincible Tucker then. What you gonnae do when you pass out between Glen's desk and the fucking fax machine, you stubborn son of a...

  


He literally roars then, and runs to the door, pushing me away so hard my head hits the towel rail and , I think I see stars for a minute.

  


While floating in 60 seconds of sharp pain and nausea, somehow I hear my mother's voice. Oh. Back from the grave, Ma? Such a weird choice of time.

"Who are you trying to fool, James? "She asks gently. "Not only you are in love with that man, you also love him with an intensity of faith even you cannot understand."  
She touches my hair then, and she smiles, and she's 40 at most and that cannot be, because I'd be fucking ten and because she's fucking dead, has been for so long there's probably nothing left of her, in that box, somewhere near Saint Monan church.

I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, the pain is gone, so is she. I'm alone in the gents and I look like a fucking moron. I walk out, whispering to the ghost of my mother something about the typical Bonehead MacDonald family tradition of falling in love with the hardest fuckers to be in love with. Think about that, right, Ma? Because no matter how good Malcolm is at being a fucking asshole, he'll never be half as shitty as my fucking father.

  


  


He manages to avoid me quite all right for one hour and a half. But in seven fucking years of him being basically my job, most of my hobbies and half of my fucking heart, you bet my Malcdar had time to evolve into fucking psychic powers.

  
I could sense his whispering voice into a babbling crowd of two hundred, with loud music and a fucking train passing by.

So, really, spotting his gravely crow calls from the bottom of a DoSAc  cubicle at the far end of a deserted corridor around seven o'clock is fucking childplay.

I find him in the middle of a _-very good, I give him that-_ bollocking of a nameless press guy who didn't send the mail he asked to be sent 12 minutes ago.  
He pushed this to an art form, really. He manages to mention dead animal rape, eyeball torture and child molesting in the same melodic, well-balanced sentence. The poor fucker has been trying to back down for what looks like a fucking long time, and begins to arch back against his desk now,  in a painful attempt at earning a few inches further from the mad, feverish blue eyes.  
As often, Malcolm ends the game with a spiderleg hand on the guy's chest, hammering the last, scariest threat with pure aspic venom in his voice.  
Great success, applause, curtain.

  


Except that when he turns his heels and walks past me to the exit, I hear it loud and clear.

  


Shit.  
Fucking shit, it's worse again.

**He's wheezing.**

  


I follow in silence and he doesn't seem to care, packing his files and fetching his coat. He sent Sam back home one hour ago in a whirl of lame excuses, and she texted me saying we might come to the point where we actually duct tape him to a bed and call a medic.

  


My head hurts, and it's only now I realise I've been squinting my eyes at him since DoSAC cubicle. Well, I can't help it, those sounds he makes, it's like paper being torn every time he draws a fucking breath, and loud, creepy radio static as he exhales in pain. I can't stand them. It makes the panic songs in my head go crazy. Turns my guts into fire. I swear I could knock him out and drag him to a fucking hospital, if it didn't mean betrayal for him, and me kicked out of his life in a heartbeat.

  
I don't think I'll ever get this drawbridge down again, in that case. No matter how long I wait.  
I have to find something else. Circle around. Siege strategy. Fine, fine. I'm up to it. 

 

In the elevator, though,the sounds become unbearable. It's chalk on blackboard, it's bones being crushed, and it breaks my heart at every floor. The car awaits and he gets in, only sparing one look for me once we exit the building. He must read the angst on my face then, for he tries to suppress his breath a little.

  


Biting his lips, he looks out the window, and I see his fists clenching under the effort.

  


  


His lungs have always been an issue, his sister once said to me. From general shortness of breath at five, it grew into severe asthma at ten. The concert caves and punk rock pubs at fifteen didn't help, even though he never touched one fag himself.

The fucking superhuman pressure that job has been putting upon him from twenty-five to this evening finished the deal. "At least I know what I'll die from" he laughed once.  
I did not laugh back.  
  
Oh, he has those weird sprays. A fuckload of doctors gave him a fuckload of weird sprays. But not even an army of those med school cunts can win against my-life-has-no-worth Tucker.  
Only Sam carries a pair of those in her purse, to forcefeed them to his mouth every time he goes all Darth Vader. He's got one at home, I think, but something tells me it won't help.

  


_Something's wrong, something's so wrong_ , goes the song of Panic, my old friend.

  


Late, very late this evening, tired of hearing me calling, he lets one small door half-open and takes one bite of the takeaway I've ordered for him. I ask if it's good and he nods. I win the holy right to five more bites and a kiss on his hollow cheek. Fuck, he's still burning. Burning what, for God's sake, burning what? There's nothing left of him.

Right before his death-like sleep takes him away from me, he reaches out to grab my shirt. Not as strong as he can be, but still. Fuck, he's amazing. Anyone else would be dead, and he's still fighting.

-" Jamie" he calls, and I don't think I ever heard so much love in his voice.

 

-"What is it, luv, eh?"

 

A low, rumbling wheeze, and I read stories about pain in his eyes as clearly as in a fucking book.

 

-" I am sorry"  
  
Another wheeze, shorter, cut in the middle by a whimper. The hand falls down. The fortress has closed.

 

I wrap myself around him, speaking nonsense and lame jokes, but I'll get no more of him tonight. The panic song becomes a white noise, an endless theme to my fear as the wheezing doesn't stop. Not that dreadful night of death sleep and feverish screams, not the morning after, in dull exhaustion and vague excuses.

As he gets out of the bathroom, suited up for work once more, looking like the shadow of the man I saw yesterday, for the first time in seven years I feel dread crawling up my spine, for I have no fucking idea what to do.

  



	3. Day three - Red

 

 

**Day Three : Red**

 

 

There's a story about a frog and hot water. You put a frog in a bowl of boiling water, she squeaks and jumps the hell out, right? Now you put the same frog in a bowl of lukewarm water, and she stays there just fine. Then you slowly turn the heat up, gradually, taking your fucking time. Well, the frog will die, boiled alive like a fucking chinese noodle.

 

There's something about Sam that tells me this story all over again, as Malcolm and I come in his office, 8.40, thursday morning.

The look on her face, that's what does it. Not that I didn't notice the water heating up, you see, but I didn't know it was that bad until I saw her jumping out of the fucking bowl. She stands there, frozen, hands up her mouth, staring at Malcolm behind me with pure horror in her eyes.

 

-”Malcolm” she nearly cries. “Malcolm you shouldn't be here, _please_...”

 

I turn around and it hits me like a punch in the stomach.

 

_Fuck._

Fuck, he's barely holding on. Never a body and a soul have been more loosely tied together. He's beyond pale now, he's white. He cannot stand without leaning on things, armchairs or desks, or shelves. He does it elegantly, with the strength he has left, but he definitely can't do without. His eyes are a fucking Great War battlefield. Rimmed with blood, foggy and sad. Every breath is hard work, sucking out what's left of him, bleeding him to dust. The wheezing have become wood splinters and cracking bones. His hands I love so much, they're white as snow, and, trembling, oh, _shit_ , trembling so hard.

He's glaring at Sam, though, his head still up high, between rage and disbelief.

 

Unconsciously, my head shrinks in my shoulders, and I wait for the dragon hiss to be heard. Hide away Sam, that's gonnae hurt.

 

But all I hear is a low, aching rattle, barely audible over the sound of BBC news.

 

-” Sam. It's fine. Just a cold, really. Business won't sort itself out, eh?”

 

I fucking can't believe it. He has joined his fingertips and bears a charming, yet uneasy smile on his chafed, white-blue lips. Fuck, that's spin doctor face #3 if I'm not mistaken. Shit, Malc. It's Sam. It's me. Do you really think your lies will work with any of us? Who do you fucking think we are?

 

Anger spirals up my guts again, and I spit between clenched teeth :

 

-”Cut the crap, zombie. You're fucking rotting.”

 

Spin Doctor face #3 falls down for a second and, flustered, he lowers his face into the first stack of papers he can find. When he looks up again, it's Spin Face #4, and it's as useless as the first. Fuck, in what state of utter ruin is he to resort to those cheap tricks?

 

Panic screams now. No more song. It's a fucking howl in my veins.

There are no more arrows, no more spears. The dragon is silenced. What remains on the rampart walk are jesters and wizards, trying to fool us into believing everything is fine.

 

But the soldiers are gone. They abandoned the fortress overnight, and I've seen nothing. That's what hurts the most, I've seen nothing. The King knew it before I did.

 

Malcolm is dying.

 

I take four steps towards him and I almost believe he'll let me touch him. But at step five he moves back, flashes of terror, plea and apology passing through Spin face #4. What is meant to be has to be, and he's out by the back door before I can reach out my hand.

 

_Fuck._

 

Now that he's in front of everyone, his rules prevail. _Never speak, never show_. We expose him now, and we loose him. He's dying, but he's still the King.

 

I rub my hands upon my face, and they're fucking freezing.

 

-”We must do something.” She whispers.

 

Yeah, Sam, I was gonnae say something amazing of the kind, thank you.

 

-”I know.”

 

Come on. I'm still down there, right? I've still got my army. Circle around, besiege. Think. I turn to Sam and snap my fingers. It helps. Time is running short, so short now.

Panic howling, shrieking in my blood, _I can't loose him_. Not now, not like this. I should have done something. I should have, on day one, I know, but those walls are so high, those ditches are so deep.

 

 

 

Nothing can touch Malcolm Tucker. The King walks on, fighting his war, crushing enemies, destroying schemes, ripping out secrets and promises with his own hands. Beneath his feet, lie the bones of those in his way. He'll stop at nothing to keep his banner up on the hill. Nothing. They all know that, and that's all they know about him.

 

But he's not like that, in fact, you know. That's not him. I know nobody would believe me because they all fucking _loathe_ him, but he's not like that. He doesn't enjoy the job, he hates it. He can't stand the screams of his victims. Hence the fortress, you see. To protect himself, from being seen, and from seeing.

 

From where he is, he can only see his purpose, the things he fights for, and not the seas of wounded he leaves behind. He doesn't hear them cry, only from far up high, muffled by thick stone walls. He can try to forget the oceans of betrayals, lies, manipulations and plots this fucking job demands of him.

From where we are, we never see anything else than what he wants us to see. A walking war machine, without a soul, without a heart. The Number ten Vampire. The thin white demon.

 

But he's not. I know he's not, I've passed those walls, I've seen what's inside. I've seen him holding me in his arms, head buried in my shoulder, as if he'd never let go of me. I've seen his hands worshipping my skin while I slowly thrust into him, his face an open book of faith and devotion. I've seen him relaxed at last after rough sex and a bath, pliant and docile, bringing me coffee and reading the news aloud for me, letting his bathrobe hang loose because he knows I love it that way.

 

I fought and I won. I laid my eyes on the treasure inside the fortress, and I claimed it mine. And I swear he's worth every cracking bone, every cry, every lie.

 

_I can't loose him._

 

 

-”Call an ambulance” I firmly break out to Sam. “But don't let anyone up here. Make them wait in my office. Pay them whatever they need to shut the fuck up and to as they're told. When I call you, I want you to run to wherever I'll be with a pair of fully-loaded medics at your heels. Right?”

 

Her eyes widen, but after a while, she come to the same conclusion as I did : there is nothing else to do. She spins around and dashes to her phone, muttering about her uncle running a private ambulance service.

I'm not listening, I'm rushing out, following him, just to be there on that dreadful minute, when from the highest tower the tolling bells shall be heard, because today, the Kind is dead.

 

 

 

 

I find him standing proud, the whole fucking team around him, spelling out our lines concerning the four main government issues of the month : immigration, transport taxes, school food and homeless refuges.

 

He's leaning on Ollie's desk, and it fucking looks natural, well done, old fucker. But they've all noticed the wheezing, and the cloudy tears of agony you can't stop rolling from your strained eyes. Nicola can't look away from your white, trembling hands and Glenn, that nice moronic flyfucker, is wincing in sympathy every time your voice drowns into shrapnel.

 

What drives me mad, but eh, what else was I supposed to expect, is that fucking _smile_ on Ollie's lips. The young shark has smelled blood, and he damn well knows he's next in line if the King falls down. Oh, don't you smile too soon, fucktard, he's still standing. I'm still standing, and if you ever move a finger on his chair behind his back I swear I'll rip your fucking eyes and bollocks out and have them stitched the other way around.

 

Terri also almost looks like she could enjoy the guilty pleasure of smiling, but that middle-class cunt has reasons. Malcolm has spent years inventing twenty new ways of making her cry her breath away every fucking week.

 

Fuck, Julius is there too. Malcolm didn't notice, because he's right behind him in a doorframe, and he's staring right into my eyes with complete, genuine panic.

Julius fucking Nicholson. I never thought he liked Malcolm.

He gestures towards Malc's thin, wheezing frame. “do something”, he mouths. I quickly raise my hands, like, “I got this”, but I can't explain it all, he'll have to trust me. He'll actually have to trust me more than I trust myself.

 

It's strange, though. This dizzy, fleeting hour where he speaks, his hoarse voice slowly weakening, the elegant waving if his hands getting scarcer by the minute.

I don't think I'll ever forget it.

 

That's it. That moment. That's the perfect, terrifying result of all your life's work, Malcolm. You spent so much time, so much energy, so much skill hassling, bullying and abusing those people. You did it so well, so deeply, with poison and daggers, with fire and rage. They saw you walking on corpses. They saw you crushing bones. They ate everyone of your lies and they thought of you exactly what you made them think. You made puppets of them, all united in their fear and hatred of everything they believe you are, and you did it so well, that after weeks and months and years of your perfect work, they are basically watching you die without moving an inch.

 

They're all watching you die, Malcolm.

 

And no one dares to touch your arm.

 

 

 

 

 

The utter sadness of it all makes my heart sink for a while. Oh, Love. That fortress of yours, see what it's done. How lonely you are, up there in your tower. How blind. They'll all stand silent as you fall. The King is dead, long live the King.

 

But not me.

 

Not me.

 

 

He coughs, hard, in the middle of a perfectly-timed sentence, and the Panic song shoots me in the back. He coughs, I feel their vulture eyes on his neck so intense it makes me sick, and that's it. That's enough. All of them, but not me. Never.

 

_Can't loose him, can't loose him._

 

I slowly walk towards him. He straightens up, stares at me with a thousand warnings in his eyes, but he's crying in pain, and his knees are already giving up on him.

 

“ _You are in love with that man_ ”, my dead mother said.

 

I circle around the printer and keep on walking. Fierce until the end, oh, brave Malcolm, he turns to the staff and spells out the last line about the homeless, his eyes throwing burning arrows with everything he has left. And you know what? They all fucking take a step back. All of them. He modulates his broken voice in one or two notes of pure threat, and they all drop their gazes. All of them, including fucktard Ollie. I take one second to admire the genius of that man, before the Panic song shouts again.

 

_Can't loose him, can't loose him._

 

Do you love me, Malcolm? Did you even think about it for a minute? Did you take time to even consider the possibility? Well will I ever know. Never speak, never show.

Those rules we all lived by, that are slowly killing him now.

 

Two more steps and I'll touch his arm.

 

Two more steps, he knows I'll do it. All of them, but not me.

 

 

At this very moment, he hears it. The panic song.

 

All his masks fall on the floor in a raw wheeze and Malcolm, genuine Malcolm stares at me with awestruck eyes. He knows. He's dying and I'm here to help. Some part of him wants to reach out. But there's twenty-five years of stone and iron standing between our hands. The most glorious of battles rages in his eyes, between himself and his own world. The dying King battles his own castle. Brave, brave Malcolm.

 

“ _You are in love with that man_ ”

 

-”Malc.”  
  
  
Calling, calling at the door again for the drawbridge to descend. I'll always be there calling. I'll be there, or I'll be dead.

 

I'm almost there, he stays still, he almost wins. I feel the fortress crumbling down, oh, _Malcolm, you're doing it_.

But twenty-five years of stone don't break down without a fight, and the broken fortress makes him jump one last time. He jumps up and steps back so fast, that even though I leap forward to grab him, this sudden, foolish move finishes him.

 

Something breaks in his chest and he starts coughing. The ugliest, greasiest cough I haver ever heard, _no, please, no_. His back hits the wall behind him, and one of his hands hold onto it. The other covers his mouth, but too late, _too late_.

 

 

One more cruel, hideous cough, and **red.**

 

**Everything goes red.**

 

His hand is soaked in blood, and he can't stop coughing. It lasts for thirty seconds of eternity, while I don't think he even breathes anymore. He's spitting up red grime, drowning in his own blood, coughing in uncontrolled spasms. Red on his shirt, red on the floor. They all scream, they all move, randomly and wild, but his eyes are for me. His walls are collapsing, but too late, _too late_. Red is everywhere. He too is crumbling down.

_No, please, Malc, no._

I hold him by the waist, pinning him on the wall to keep him standing. His mouth is slack, and an endless trickle of greasy blood keeps running from it, splattering on the floor in pretty red roses, _oh God._

His eyes still locked on me, raw and naked, alive with emotion and yet already made of blurred glass, he lets go of the wall to grab my shirt, but he's got no strength anymore. _It's over_ , Panic whispers, and my heart turns into lead.

 

 

-”Jamie” he calls, his voice but a ghost. Another huge clot of dark, angry red slides along his lips, along his throat.

 

-”I'm here luv. It's allright”.

 

He's leaning on me now, limp and soaked in blood. He slowly puts his arms around me, and they may whisper and they may call, his last words are still for me.

 

-” I am sorry” he says. But I can only read his lips. He made no sound.

 

 

His eyes roll back, he coughs another red splatter on my collar, and his legs give up. He slides along my body.  I lean down to catch him, wrap my arms around his knees and back, and lift him up. Shit, he weights nothing, _please, please Malc, don't you dare !_

 

I don't have to call Sam. She heard the screams and the medics are barging in.

 

He's in my arms, drenched in his own blood, red on the floor, red on my hands. I don't think he's breathing anymore.

 

**Red.**

 

 

Red is everywhere.

 

_The King is dead._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I leave you here with a bit of cliffhanger. Sorry for that.  
> But I promise you, this may very much seem so, but this is *not* a deathfic. Stay tuned. Everything shall be fine.


	4. Day four - Glow

 

  
  


**-Day four :glow.**

  
  


  
  


I don't even know if it's day or night.

  
  


  
  


  
  


They removed his suit. They removed everything. They gave him one of those open nightgowns he'd hate so much, pinstripe beige, two sizes too big. God, I should have forced him to eat some more. I should have.

I should.

He's like a weird Tim Burton drawing of himself, stretched on that bed, wiry and white, his closed eyes painted in countless shades of purple and black.

  
  


Silent, so silent now.

_Beep. Beep._

  
  


From two blueish spots on his thin white arms, they got spiders of hollow tubes running to a dozen of fucking plastic bags. Antibiotics. Fluids. Nutriments, I guess. Blood.

  
  


I don't even know if it's day or night outside. There are no windows in ICU. My world shrunk to this narrow bed. This beige nightgown. My dawn and my twilight are the glowing eyes of those machines they plugged him on. My life revolves around their lonely beeping sounds.

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


  
  


How did we get here, Malcolm? Do you remember? Because I fucking don't. From the moment you closed your eyes, back at the office, everything's a blur.

  
  


I know they tried to take you from my arms. They wanted to lie you down on their plastic bodybag and fuck, there was no way I'd let them do that. There were two medics, the old and the young. The young tried to pull you out of my hands, I think I shouted.

  
  


Then the old one spoke, and Sam too. They told me about a hospital, and at some point Sam was begging. I did trust Sam,so I let go of you, a little bit. They rushed around you in a blur of those fucking orange vests and stuck a mask on your face. I laughed because, hah, one more mask. Sam told them I was in state of shock or some shit. I wasn't. I just gave no fucks for anything. You see, you were dead. Your blood, your fucking blood was all over the place. Under this fucking ridiculous bright aluminium cover you looked so small, so frail. They were pumping air into your lungs so hard I saw the young one sweating under the effort. You did not move, not even when they fucking grabbed you, strapped you on that stretcher and carried you to the elevator like a fucking sandbag.

  
  


  
  


I wanted to follow. There wasn't even a point in discussing that. I'll be there or I'll be dead. But they said no, naming that fucking hospital again. I refused to let you out of my sight, but Sam grabbed both my arms, and someone else, Julius I think, blocked my exit until the elevator doors slid shut. I might have punched the man. I dunno.

  
  


  
  


I shouted the hell at them all that's for sure. You know me right?

  
They stared at me gawking like fucking goldfish in their bowls. I remember watching Ollie, swearing to kill him with my fucking bare hands if he dared to smile. He did not. No one did. For some reason Terri had some of your blood on her blouse, and you know what, Malc? Even then you found a way to make her cry again. How cool is that?

  
  


When Sam pushed me to the elevator, naming that fucking hospital again, they all stepped aside to let me out. She brought me here, told me to wait. She did wait with me for a while. I guess she tried to talk to me, but I don't think I said anything. She went away at some point. Maybe because it was four in the morning. I don't remember.

I only know they made me wait in a corridor, under a worn-out poster about AIDS. They tried to make me go home, you see, told me I wasn't family. _Ha_. The fuck I'm not family. I'm fucking everything, I said. I'm fucking everything he has, you whitecoated nametagged cunts. I yelled, I punched walls, I gave them _hell_ , Malc, I swear. You know me right?

When they finally understood I was never going away, they showed me your room and gave me this chair. I don't know how long ago. My dawn and my twilight are the glow of those beeping machines.

Those mechanical birds singing the song of your heartbeat. 

_Beep. Beep._

  
  


Heartbeat.

  
  


They told me they found yours. In the ambulance. It was weak but it was there. They told me you weren't dead, and at first I didn't believe them. Have you seen all that fucking blood, I said. I showed them my hands, black with your drying clots.

  
  


They spoke some shit about lung infection, then. Pneumonia and whatnot. It was close, said some fucker in a lab coat. You wouldn't have made it if the medics weren't already next door. The infection had damaged the veins in your lungs and you couldn't breathe, they said. Well, no shit.

They said not dead, but I knew I had to hear “not dead yet”.

Because they had their bullshit face on, I know it. They gave it to me for Ma. They had her plugged just like you, in a dark room with tubes and needles. They put on that fucking smile on their faces and they put on that fucking voice to simper some shit like “She's fighting, we mustn't loose hope.”

  
  


Bullshit. Cancer is cancer.

  
  


She died in a month. She didn't even open her eyes once.

  
  


  
  


And you. _So much blood._

 

They made me wash my hands, and three times weren't enough. I still have angry lines of red between my fingers. It has dried on my shirt in blurred stains of old wine. The stains say dead, the machine birds say not. So I shove my hands in my pockets and focus on the glow.

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


I don't know for how long. There are no windows in ICU.

  
  


My world is your bed, and the flashes of your white skin under those sheets. Your neck, the one I've craved to bite again and again, an alien assembly of tendons and bones. Your hands, those beloved hands, bloodless and petrified under the crushing weight of tubes and straps. Your eyes, that could tell a thousand words between a frown and a side glance, worn out and closed in violent red.

  
  


Your hollow cheek beneath the oxygen mask looks so soft, though. I wish I could touch you but I hate my own hands. They say dead.

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


My mother's face, in the blown glass between my world and the corridor, smiles down at me and whispers it's all right. "I'll bake some cookies for Malcolm", she says. “Just bring him inside the house, can't you smell them already?”

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


I can't remember what her cookies tasted like. I remember the taste of coke, booze and my own blood. The only communion wines I've been good at using. Shit, he's too thin. I should have forced him to eat. _Shit._ Was I ever good at anything?

  
  


_Beep._

  
  


  
  


  
  


What?

  
  


My eyes, blurred by hours of staring, focus on the glowing machines again. No.

  
  


  
  


_Beep._

  
  


The song has slowed down. The line of his heartbeat, flatter by the second. No.

On the glowing screen, numbers I can't get the point of drop like a freak show countdown. No.  
  
 _Beep._  
  
  


  
  


_Beep._

__  
  
  


_Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep._

  
  


Flat line.

Screens glow red.

Alarms shriek in the dark.

Three different bells in that small room.

  
  


**No !**

  
  


I rush out in the corridor, running through a thousand ghosts of my mother, smiling, smiling.

  
  


I'm ready to yell something, anything, grab any living soul in a white coat I see passing by and fucking shove it inside. But the alarms have screamed long before I'll ever do, and a team of four men is already running to me, another machine rolling smoothly on the cement floor behind them.

I'm pushed away, and I can't hear, and I can't see, and you can't be dying twice, you can't do that to me. I'll go mad, Malcolm, I'll be lost, _please._

  
  


Malcolm!

  
  


  
  


I think I'm crying. I don't know. I think I'm falling, I don't know. My mother comes smiling and sits down next to me. She's covered in dirt, her red dress, the only one she ever had, torn and eaten by nasty holes, and there's something between her smiling teeth.

  
  


Oh. Of course.

  
  


_Maggots._

  
  


She's been dead for twenty-six years.

  
  


She puts her hand on my shoulder, and it's dark green and black. “Everything's all right, me bairn, she says. How about a cookie and a ginger for both of ye, aye?”

 _Malcolm_ , I tell her. _Malcolm is dying again_.

-”I know, wee lad. That's why I'm here.” she chimes, and there's nothing in her eye sockets but bone and a bit of yellow grass.

  
  


_Oh, God, where are you now?_

  
  


  
  


When they come back from his room, I'm kneeling on the floor, I don't know for how long, and they brush away the corpse of my mother by lifting me up and checking my pulse.

  
  


-”Are you allright, Mister?” One young fugly redhead spells out, grabbing my face and pointing a fucking laser straight into my eyes.

  
  


-”Malcolm...

  
  


I shake my head, turning away from the light, staggering a few steps back. Three worried faces in white coats, and the last one still in the room. I can't hear the bird machines. What do the machines say?

  
  


Please, let me hear the glowing birds of his heartbeat.

  
  


-”Mister Tucker suffered from heart failure, mostly from the extreme weakness and a side-effect of the medication. His heart has restarted, he's safe for now. We've changed the antibiotics and added nutrition. He needs energy to fight the infection. He's stable. Now, sir, are _you_ all right? ”

Said the oldest, fattest one. The one with the biggest name tag.

  
  


They all shut up, at last, waiting for my answer. And I hear them. I hear them, oh, my Malcolm, bravest king of all.

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


I feel the wave of relief washing through me, like a fucking tsunami, and flowing away with all the strength I had left. I feel empty. I feel nothing.

Four faces in front of me now. Their looks puzzled, their eyes suspicious. Ballpoint pens ready, pagers online.

  
  


You all think me mad, right? Hah. Of course. You have no idea, med school cunts. Ask my dead mother. She's right behind you.

  
  


Tell them, Ma.

**Tell them, Death.**

  
  


  
  


I start giggling, my eyes tearing up a little, and I don't think it's a good sign. One of the whitecoated shitheads is already paging someone, and I'm fucked.

  
  


-”Jamie !

  
  


My head jumps up. **Sam.**

  
  


She comes down the corridor, and she's fucking perfect, pantsuit and high heels, white shirt, killer hips. She's bringing a big fat plastic bag, and the curves of her lipstick are writing tales of authority.

  
  


Oh, you should see her Malc. She _is_ your daughter. You can be fucking proud.

  
  


She smiles like prime ministers smile, and grabs my arm in a reassuring gesture. She speaks quietly to the four nametagged cunts, with many thank you and a whole fucking lot of please. She spells out names and numbers and she even pulls out a nicely done Malcolm Spin Face #2, which is kinda frightening.

  
  


At the end of it all, not one of the four faces is suspicious anymore. They all smile, charmed, and two of them are already leaving, dragging the rolling machine behind. Only the fat old one and the redhead linger on, clearing their throats.

  
  


-”I assure you that you will have nothing to worry about as far as Mr MacDonald is concerned.”

  
  


-”I'm sure of it” fiddles the fat one. “But, concerning Mr. Tucker...”

I flinch, teeth clenching so hard it sends pain shots through my skull. Their bullshit face. Again.

He spares a glance to the bed inside the room and has the most awkward gesture of a hand I've ever seen, and I've fucking seen a lot. Sam tightens up her grip on my arm, because I'm pretty sure I'm moving to kill the fucker.

  
  


-”He's very strong for a man of his age, and his stature. But for caution's sake, I think you'd better call what family he has. The lungs are severely damaged. Things might not... unfold happily.”

  
  


  
  


Behind his shoulder, the corpse of my mother smiles her smile of soil and worms.

  
  


  
  


I close my eyes.

  
  


  
  


  
  


It was march, end of march 2001. Shitty day. We basically had to run from morning cup to evening cab. He started wheezing at one pm and sincerely, in the car back home, I thought he wouldn't make it. Of course he had no spray, of course he didn't call Sam. He didn't call anyone, up there in his fortress. I grabbed his hand and he smiled, half passed out already, eyes blurred and cheeks burning.

There were things to be said in his eyes, but he had no breath to make a sound.

 

I fucking carried him to his flat, laid him down on his couch, and the minutes I spent looking for that fucking spray were the longest minutes of my life. I eventually forced three doses up his mouth and the magic worked. He crawled back to normal in sixty seconds. We had a fight, then. Not too noisy. He was too tired to be fun fighting with.

I switched modes, then, and stripped him to his briefs to lick and bite every bit of skin I could fancy. He let me in. He even purred a little, stroking my hair, whispering stories, giving me pet names, and everything. After it all, he grabbed my wrist as I got up for a fag, and scribbled a note on the back of an empty matchbox. This was a phone number, and a name: Karen.

  
  


-”That's my sister” he said. “You've seen her three years ago.”

-”Aye, once in seven years. She stopped over here one evening on her way to holidays. You told him I was just a guy from work, crashing in your sofa because my flat was in repairs. She's bonny. Fucking better looking than you, auld twat.”

He used his grip on my wrist to armlock the fuck out of me and have me falling back into the couch. He slipped the paper in my hand, kissing my temple with a bit of uneasy care.

-”If something happens to me one fine day”, he whispered to the skin of my temple, “call Karen. She'll know what to do. She'll tell her daughter, she'll tell my mother. She'll arrange the papers. You won't have to worry. I've provided for you, there's a will. You'll have the flat, and my...”

-”Shut up.” I said. I could hear no more.

  
  


-”Jamie, I'm forty-seven, and not exactly in the greatest of shapes. If the job goes on like this I'll never be nursing home material, I'll be...

**-”Shut up !**

I kissed him again, making him close his eyes in bliss so he couldn't see mine. Facing the facts has never been my strong suit. My King was immortal. That's the only tale I wanted to hear.

  
  


  
  


  
  


I kept the paper anyways.

  
  


  
  


I dig in my pocket, pull out my old timeworn wallet, and between two takeaway cards and an expired condom, there it is, in tatters but still readable. I hand it over to Sam. She understands. No word is said.

  
  


The whitecoats fuck off and she gives me the plastic bag. There's a complete change of clothes inside, and she nods to the small shower in Malc's room. I kiss her forehead. Going back in, I allow myself thirty seconds of gently stroking his cheek. He doesn't move, but he's not cold. He's soft, just the way I thought.

  
  


_Beep. Beep._

  
  


The machine birds sing the song of a steady heart. What is an infection when you've brought down an entire fucking castle, eh? My King is immortal.

The only tale I ever want to tell.

  
  


  
  


I dare one smile, and I turn to Sam, through the open door, just to show her it's fine. She's gone, but so is my mother's corpse, so it's still fine. _Still fine_.

  
  


  
  


On my way to the shower, I die once more. _Alarm_. Shrieking again, _oh, please no,_ _ **I can't**_ _, I..._

  
  


The sound doesn't come from the machines. It comes from his coat, they left hanging on a peg near the bathroom door. I fumble through his pockets, to pull out his angry Blackberry, 7 missed calls, 13 messages, incoming : The Daily Mail.

  
  


At the seventh ring, Malcolm moans, brow furrowed, and that's it. That's _exactly_ the fact that he didn't sigh for my hand stroking his cheek, but somehow this shrieking piece of junk has him worried even in a fucking half-coma, that pushes me over the edge.

  
  


  
  


They may have heard my shouting up to the roof and down to the morgue, I give no shit. I fucking throw that fucking shit against a wall so hard it shatters in thousands tiny wires and chips, and what's left of the core, I pick up, break in two and flush in the fucking toilet.

  
  


No more sound now, except the birds.

  
  


  
  


  
  


Malcolm's frown eases off, and he stirs, looking quiet.

  
  


Oh, aye, m' love, you don't need walls around yae now.

  
  


You have me.

  
  


  
  


**You'll always have _me._**

  
  


  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised two chapters, but this one is long enough. The next one is coming up fast, one day or two, no more.  
> A bit of a rollercoaster eh? Through the madness and the angst, you already see it going better now, so I hope the waiting isn't too hard now !
> 
> Thank you so much for following this, and taking time to react. I never thought. It amazes me.


	5. Day five - Angels

 

**Day five : Angels  
**

 

I don't know what Sam told them on the phone.

 

She only came back in the room after my shower, to tell me they were to arrive to London Euston 6 hours and a half later. I checked the time on one of Malc’s machines, as I slowly came to know them, by then. It said 11:21, but it didn’t mean a thing to me. I just did the math. When clock says 18:00, get up. That’s all. She said she'll book a cab for them, and asked me to meet them when they'll step in the hospital. I don't remember agreeing, but it doesn't matter. She knew I’d do it. I fucking _owed_ her.

 

She had to go, again, to deal with the shitstorm of the Office Without Malcolm, and she allowed herself one minute of brushing Malc’s hand before pulling a sandwich and a coke out of her purse and leaving it all for me on the bedside table. At the sight of it, my stomach howled in pure lust, and, mouth watering, I mumbled that I wasn’t hungry.

She smiled, sure you’re not, you idiot, and she walked away in perfect grace.

 

I counted 25 seconds exactly, threw myself on that food and made a quick business of it.

 

Then, I waited. Glowing songs and silent darkness again.

 

Watching him. I’ve spent my life watching him, waiting for him. It’s fine like this.

_Still fine._

 

 

Not that he was moving a lot, you see. He sometimes stirred or whimpered, but his eyelids didn’t even flinch. That looked more like sleep than coma, for that I thanked Heaven and Earth, glowing birds, ringing bells, and everything, but the sounds of his breathing in that mask and the seventeen shades of white and red splattered upon his skin I still hated with all I had. I held his hand, or arranged his hair whenever I was bored of just staring. I read a few newspapers for him; I only picked up the phone for Sam. She told me things were manageable up there. Nothing leaked in the press. I saw that. As for those cunts at the office, I only asked if Ollie had made any move to take over the job. She told me he only was the most eager to know how Malcolm was doing. I fucking hated him to the guts, and though I knew he’s just a younger, uptight next –gen Malcolm, I swore I’ll give him so much pain when - _if_ \- I come back up there that he’ll fucking sue his own mother for letting him live. She laughed and said Julius had a broken nose, but sent his good wishes. Fuck, I _did_ punch the guy.

Think he likes whiskey. I’ll steal one of Malc’s bottles and give it to him. Fair game.

 

 

Hours came and went in our cave as old friends visiting, and after a while, the clock said 18:00.

 

I kissed Malc’s cheek, a threatening eye on the glowing birds, don’t you dare fuck things up while I’m away. I scrubbed my hands clean and washed my face, that’s the only manners I had for them.

 

When the elevator doors slid open from the Underground into the wide hall, bright, orange daylight burned me alive. Chattering noises, footsteps, colours, fucking people and fucking voices. I winced, dropping my eyes and hissing. Everything was clean windows and open spaces, and I took a few blind steps, man on the moon. I found a spot near a plastic tree, where the odds of me being walked upon were lower, and I froze, dizzy and confused.

A huge digital clock above the reception told me Saturday evening, 18:08, and strangely, that clock actually meant something. I’ve been there for 24 hours. Oh. So long. So short.

 

And I’m standing there now, right on time, fidgeting and, I think, pacing back and forth like a fucking autistic moron, but I give no shit. I’m only annoyed by the ten minutes I’ll have to spend with Malcolm’s bed out of my sight, three floors below. I try to forget about that clock by preparing words and sentences, making up three, giving up four. Fuck, I have no idea what to say.

 

He never spoke to them about us.

What is “us” anyways?

_Do you even love me, Malcolm?_

 

Did you take one hour of your time, up there in your fortress, to consider the idea?

 

 

Fuck, what should I say, now?

 

I’m biting my nails, trying not to give a fuck, failing, trying again, under the unforgiving light of evening skies.

 

 

They almost arrive unnoticed, the whole remains of the Tucker family three, two women and a child, without a word, without a tear. Stern, wary faces and worried glances is all they spare for the world. Fuck, looks like building walls is fucking family pride-and-tradition.

 

Though I can see the old woman has cried, and the young hasn’t slept last night. Obviously they are no match for the master of the art, family’s flagship, the dashing HMS Malcolm.

The sister, Karen, recognizes me first. Well, she did see me once.

She walks to me, dragging her wee lass behind, who’s hugging a bunny plush as if her life depended on it. I spit out the few surviving words of my inner brainstorming. I was never good at making up lies. I’m good at punching them into people’s heads. Malcolm has always been the criminal mastermind. I’m just his fucking army of one.

 

-“Hi. I’m Jamie. A friend from work.

 

That’s so lame I wince at myself. But she smiles and nods, shaking my uneasy hand with a clean, dry one.

-“Samantha told me you’d be waiting. Thank you for everything you did for him.

 

I shrug. I’m good at shrugging.

 

She steps aside and shows me the child, who can’t seem to lift her eyes to me, biting her thumb, worrying one of her bunny’s paws, gaze resolutely fixed on her mother’s shoes. Oh, hello, young autistic Tucker. I already sense patterns.

 

-“This is Maidie” Karen says, then adds in apology, “she’s tired. The train was noisy.”

 

Behind the child stands who can only be Malcolm’s mother. The one I heard him talk to on the phone once or twice. The one he has this special voice for, toning it down two steps and a half, and, in ways that never cease to amaze me, telling the truth, or not telling at all.

He never spoke about me. Of course, _of course_.

 

 

-“And this is Moira Tucker, our mother.”

On cue, the old woman takes three steps towards me, and she doesn’t look like she’ll ever need a walking cane. She must be like, 85, and she’s fucking prancing. She shakes my hand more firmly than the last Minister of Social Affairs did, looking straight into my soul with intense, yet sweet eyes.

 

-“ _Mòran taing_  , me boy”

She speaks half fucking Gaelic.

 

I dig out what’s left of mine, with a look that clearly tells there will be no more:

-«  _Na gabh dragh_. »

 

I guess that’s enough, because she smiles, and she’s got a complete, fucking natural set of white teeth and for one second I wonder if Malcolm is even of this planet. She pats my hand then, and asks about Malc in regular, yet highly covered by Glaswegian grass English.

 

I point my finger down below and walk back to the elevator, throwing words behind my shoulder like Hop-O’my Thumb pebbles, and they all follow the path.

-“Not good, but yesterday was fucking awful. So ‘not good’ in an improvement. They say it’s lung infection, and his lungs were already a fucking problem. He’s weak because he never eats anything, so they don’t know if he’s gonnae make it. Some say he will, some just smile and hurry the fuck out. Truth is they know no shit.

 

Shit, I forgot the swearing. I turn to them mid-last-sentence to check, but their faces say nothing. Even the wee lass looks like she’s fucking used to it.

 

I try not to run as we come closer to the room. I almost fail at the door. But it’s fine, still fine, the birds sing all right. Malcolm hasn’t moved, his hand still just the way I left it, but the birds say alive.

 

Karen gasps, and the child grows pale. They stop five feet into the room, eyes wide on the bed. Only the old woman walks past me and right to him, steady and proud, sitting on my chair and taking that hand in hers. Malc's sister stares for some more time, and right before the clouds in her eyes break into pouring rain, she retreats in the corridor, followed by the quiet footsteps of young Maidie.

 

 

The nagging hurt of stepping away from him is tempting, but, shit, that's his mother. So I shrug, and follow the lasses outside. We stand here, the three of us, in silence, having no fucking idea what to say to each other, and for a fucking long time. Until the moment where, from the room, Moira Tucker's voice slowly rises, humbly supported by the glowing birds, kindly dimmed by the blow glass.

 

 

_Gu robh neart na cruinne leat  
'S neart na grèine …_

 

 

I know that song.

 

  
'S neart an tairbh dhuibh  
'S àirde leumas...

 

 

Fuck, where did I hear it?

 

Ah, of course. Ma. That's a fucking lullaby.

I try to push away the memories of her, because I fear I'll see her face again. She's been gone for a while now, means I'm not mad anymore. The stench of death has gone from the corridor.

 

It's fine, still fine.

 

 

It's weird, really, the sight of us, aligned like bookshelves in that corridor, looking through the blown glass the blurred silhouette of the bed, the machines, and that 85 years old scottish woman, still dashing, singing old gaelic lullabies to the Government's Head Communications Officer, the feared and renowned Malcolm Tucker.

 

There's Karen, eight years younger than Malc, and fucking beautiful, like the women of our lands can be. She's auburn brown, Tucker trademark blue eyes, lines of worry and emotion on her face only there to tell you about how fucking classy she is. She's dressed for work, and I heard she works in a restaurant. Something posh. A kind of uniform, but with fitted skirt and glam colours. Suits her fine.

 

There's Maidie, 6 years old, in a sweet little dress of light purple with, I think, lil' fucking cupcakes all over, soon to be asleep in her mother's arms, who didn't meet my gaze even once.

 

And there's me, in the thick jumper and cotton pants Sam found for me, looking like the latest piece of junk picked out of a coke den. Well, I'd know what I'm talking about, right.

 

-”He never talks much”, Karen finally speaks, her eyes never leaving the room. “He never forgets birthdays or Christmases, always there for Maidie, but he never talks. He sends so much money, sometimes I feel ashamed. We did argue about this, more than once. But he’s right, Maidie wants to go to art school, and I can’t afford art school. I can’t even afford to buy her nice clothes, for God’s sake. We need him. The father, you know, he left me when she was 3. Malcolm chased him and told him to come back and do his duty. He refused, so he broke his jaw twice and worked very hard to make him loose his job, and the one after that. And the one after. He destroyed him, then he took his place. Well, financially at least. Because he never has time for coming home, never. Not even one weekend, one Christmas day. He sends gifts, he sends flowers, but, you see, he’s never there. I told him a thousand times, providing all this, it’s good, it’s amazing for Maidie, but it doesn’t replace affection, I say. But he always brushes that away with one of his long speeches, you see, where you have no strength left to argue, at the end...

 

I silently witness a few words becoming a fucking waterfall of memories, and I wouldn’t dare to interrupt for details. Those are pieces of Malcolm’s life I didn’t know of. Fuck, however chaotic and shattered, let them come.

 

-“Maidie loves him so much, though I’m not sure she would even recognize him. He’s like a distant angel to her, she’s always asking when he’ll be home. She loves to draw, so she’s always drawing something for him. She sends them along with our cards and letters, but I know the cards we get back are written by Samantha. So I tried to come to London a few times, bring Maidie over, so he could see her. But every time I had something planned out, it has been cancelled for some reason. After a while, I gave up. I get money, and gifts for myself or my daughter. It means he’s alive and well, I guess. You can’t change him; you can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to, can you? Mother is more obstinate. She calls every week, may he pick up or not. I think she gets more news than I do, but, you know, she doesn’t speak much either. So...

 

A bit short of breath, she stops talking, looking surprised at her own speech. Then, timidly, she turns her head to me. I feel like I should say something. I didn’t prepare. I was never good at lying.

 

Fuck it. Truth it shall be.

 

-“He speaks to no one. He can’t. That’s his job, you see. Every day, it’s like a war. He’s like a warlord, a strategic genius, moving armies to keep one man in power. Every day he has to be fucking invincible. There’s his army fuckups he has to fix, somehow. There’s the man in power making mistakes he has to erase. There are guys like him in the enemy camp trying to put their own guy on the same chair. He’s fighting. Every day, every hour. And he’s good. Fuck, he’s the best, you see. It’s been twenty years, and he’s still undefeated. He’s amazing.The cleverest man I’ve ever known. But all of this, it has a price. He had to build walls. Lots of thick, high walls. Like a caste around himself. Because the things he has to do, you know, he hates them. Those things his job asks of him. Nasty things.

 

Her eyes widen, as if all her doubts had finally found a confirmation. Fuck, what did I say?

 

-“ Those things...” she breathes, tense with apprehension, “they are not legal, are they?”

 

-“What? No! Shit, no, it’s perfectly legal. It’s just... Bad. Morally. He has to destroy people. Like your ex. Not always with the jaw-breaking part. Most often it's just careers or reputations he breaks. Sometimes a marriage, or a nose. He has to, you see. That's the rules of the job. Kill or be killed. You have to be a heartless vicious bastard to survive.”

 

-”Are you telling me that's who Malcolm is?” she challenges, chin up, a bit of softened, yet recognizable Tucker fury already brewing in her eyes.

 

 

Fuck, I really suck at talking. Anyone other than Malc never seems to get my fucking point, whatever I say. I should stop trying some time.

 

-” **No**! No, he's not like that, not really. That's why he never opens up to anyone, you see. He's locked inside a fortress, a facade, an armour. It allows him to do the job, and protect himself. Everyone thinks he's just the vicious bastard he needs to be, and he can pretend he doesn't care for the consequences of his murder tactics. That's why. I wanted to tell you, because I know. That's all. He's locked in a castle he built himself. Inside, he's kind, he's... gentle. He just forgets to open the fucking door a bit too often.”

 

I sigh, and press my fingertips against the blown glass. I'm exhausted, and vaguely anxious at the thought of Malcolm rising up from his bed to grab my collar and tell me to shut the fuck up. I don't want to speak to anyone else, ever again.

 

But she's smiling now, and I never thought this would be enough to lighten up the whole damn aisle. Her face is like a younger, smoother alternative-universe Malcolm, clever and compassionate. The child sleeps like a stone now, her head on her mother's shoulder, the bunny still tightly grasped.

 

She opens her mouth to speak softly, but that's not her voice I hear:

-”You are fond of my son.”

 

 

_Oh no._

 

I turn over to meet Moira Tucker's piercing eyes. I hear Malcolm, at the back of my head, bollocking the hell out o'me for not being able to shut my fucking trap. Well you shouldn't have died, you scrawny auld git, and leave me alone facing your exquisite Tucker psycho circus.

 

-”I... I've just known him for a long time. That's all”.

 

A fucking long time, Mam, I tell you. Post-punk Glasgow and seminary halls. We first met in a bar you wouldn't like to find him in. He was writing a paper on that band, and I was trying to drink myself to death. Alle fucking luia.

He yelled at me for being a disgrace. How surprising. He dragged me out of the bar and drove me back to the abbey, telling me to fucking stop or fucking quit. Next week, we were both back in the same cave. I bought him a drink before he had time to start yelling. He didn't yell. I liked him.

 

One whole year of rises and falls, from booze to coke, back to booze and up to clean, with him always, magically popping up behind me in muddy back alleys to grab my collar and kick me out of darkness.

One whole year, and that night, the Misfit Bar parking lot.

He had me sober and clean for sixty five days, by the power of his constant fury, and the gift of me liking him far, far too much. “Quit”, he said. “I have a job in London. Come with me, I'll squeeze you in. That's where you belong, not among cassocks and old books. ”

 

I paused, doubting as I had doubted for countless years before. He grabbed my face, then, angled his and came closer. I clasped the rosary in my pocket.

 

When he kissed me, I clutched it so hard it broke.

 

I perceived it as a sign. I followed him.

 

From post-punk Glagow to high-class London. From seminary to press office. From kissing to botched handjobs, back to kissing and up to nothing, as First and Last Wife entered chatroom. Well I found myself a wife too, fine. Of course I was divorced with two babbies one year before his own wife left, but you can't blame me, eh. It was all about him, from the start, anyways. Everything. Everything was about him. From the Misfit Bar to election night 1997.

 

From election night 1997 to this very hour, my liege, my King. Malcolm Tucker.

 

 

 

-”...I'm just a friend from work.”

 

 

 

Moira frowns a wee bit, her inhuman gaze swiping me up and down, taking her time. She nods, and walks to Karen.

 

-”We can't let that child sleep here, Ren.” she states in a clear voice. “We should take a cab to the hotel. Get some rest.”

 

She has a glance for the bed in the room, and her steel eyes flicker for a few seconds. Her bottom lip shivers, but she shakes her head and mutters :

-”Malcolm doesn't react. There's nothing more we can do tonight.”

 

She turns to me then and, quietly, extends her hand in my direction.

 

-”Will you come with us, Mister? Where do you live?”

 

-”I'm not leaving.”

 

 _Shit_. Malc's voice again, very loud. I'm sorry, so sorry. Never been good at lying. I'm so tired. Could they just go, so I could sit back and watch the birds? That's all I want, forever on. Watch you sleep and never talk again.

 

-”You can't spend the night here”, Karen tries, “you...

 

-”It's fine.” I cut her short. “There's a chair. Go put Maidie in bed. It's fine. I'll just stay here and...

 

_...hold his hand._

 

I shut up, squeeze my eyes shut, rub my temples, please go away.

One hand on my arm, small, comforting. Moira.

She smiles up to me and nods again, moving to leave in tiny, vigorous steps.

 

-”I always knew my son had a friend, so good he'd need no other. I see now it is you. I am glad.”

 

And with this, they leave, walking away to the elevator in settled, yet wary steps.

 

I count 25 seconds exactly, and I rush inside to sit and have my fix of his skin. I grab his arm, lower my head onto the sheets and sigh. The dark, the birds, the glow. Me and him, forevermore.

There's a bit of his smell left, under the strong scent of antiseptic and washing liquid. I lift up a bit of his sleeve to gain access to a few more inches of skin. I kiss it, half-dazed by exhaustion. He's soft. But fuck, he's cold.

 

So cold. I should turn the heating up. Where's the fucking heating in there? I grab an extra cover under the bed and lay it over him. I slide my own hands under, grab the same inches of skin once more. My head hits the mattress again. I'll just close my eyes one minute, all right luv? You family just wore me out. Sucked me dry. Lovely lasses, though.

 

Lovely.

 

 

 

Malcolm opens his eyes, has a soft, elegant laughter and turns on his side to look at me. Somehow there's light in the room, soft light, like sunday morning in his flat, when he won't be going to the office, and he'll just get up and make coffee for two. His eyes are clear, and God, how beautiful he is. He lifts up my chin with two fingers and kisses me. Somehow his respiratory mask is gone, and his lips are soft and fresh, and they always are in the morning. He whispers something, but I can't hear. Well, he smiles, so it's fine.

It's fine.

 

He gets up, graceful and quiet, his bathrobe hanging loose on his frame, and throws a glance over his shoulder. I'd burn alive for that look, Malcolm, I say. He laughs again. He speaks, a bit louder, but I still can't hear. It's fine, it's fine.

 

The room darkens, I don't know why. The morning light has gone. The sheets are cold, and I'm afraid. Come back to bed, I say. But he doesn't listen. The room is dark, I'm terrified. His hands are pressed on his mouth, keeping it closed. He looks at me with peaceful sadness for a while, then, suddenly, he drops his hands, opens his mouth, and screams.

 

He screams in pure agony and torture, a torrent of blood running from his lips. There's so much blood the bedroom's floor is drowned in an instant. The scream is unbearable, rising, rising, in high inhuman notes, rising like a shriek from a broken machine.

 

Red.

 

Everything is turning **red.**

 

-”Jamie.” he calls, lips leaking blood in dark, living, crawling clots. “I am sorry”.

 

 

No.

 

The scream. _Alarm._

 

**No !**

 

I wake up.

 

 

Screens glowing red. Alarms ringing.

Flatline on the screen.

 

_Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep._

 

No.

 

I don't run outside. I won't run anymore. I grab his nightgown, lift him up. Our faces nearly touch, and for what seems to be the first time, I'm here popping up in his muddy back alley, shaking him out of darkness. Yes, it's time.

 

It's my turn to yell.

 

 

-” **No you won't**. You won't, do you hear me? You came in and you saved me, you walked into darkness, had a hold of me and pushed me upwards. You held my face and you kissed me. You were my first ever, do you hear me, auld twat, **do you hear**? And through all those fucking years, Malcolm, trough the dark and through the light, from the day I told the priest my soul was lost to this very second, you came in and took over God. You fucking replaced him in my heart, can you hear me? All those saints, all those angels, the whole Kingdom of Heaven wasn't worth the smallest of your smiles, the shadow of your hand. I'd burn churches in your name, I'd burn them down, because your eyes are the only stained glass I want to look through. **So you won't die, Malcolm Tucker!** You won't die because you are my everything, my sky and my soil, and the only promise I'll ever believe in. You won't die on me, Malcolm, because from the first day to this second, and from this second to every forever I will find, I'll be madly, blindly in love with you. And I'll step into darkness if I must, no matter how deep you'll sink, I'll grab you and pull you out, as you did once for me. I'll do it a thousand times even if it fucking **kills** me, can you hear that? I'll do it, my love, my temple, my everything...

 

And through the tears in my eyes, I see the sun entering the room. Chasing away the dark and the gloom, lighting up the walls, silencing the birds. I see everything alight, praising the eternal dawn, and miracles are real. Because when the tears fall and my vision clears up, Malcolm Tucker is looking at me, eyes open, wide awake.

Both his hands gripping my sleeves with deadly force once more.

 

 

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

 

 

 

 

The medics appear at the door, machines ready, only to drop their tools and gape. I loosen my grip on him, and slide back a few inches. One of his hands stubbornly keeps on grabbing my sleeve, and the other comes up, lifting his mask. He coughs up, not too hard, and his eyes never leave mine.

He parts his dried-up lips, gives out half a wheeze, and speaks, oh God, he speaks:

 

-”Jamie.” he calls, and his voice, through a mere shadow to his own, is not the voice I'd hear from behind a thick castle wall.

 

My hand darts to his mouth without thinking.

-”Please, don't you say I'm sorry, or I swear I'll...”

 

-” Thank you.” he speaks against my fingers, kissing them at the end.

 

 

The doctors slowly walk close, vaguely checking vitals and machines, muttering theories and speculations, but I know. He is morning light and evening sun. He is everything, and no darkness can hold him down. My King is immortal, that's the only tale I want to write.

 

They stay for an hour at least, giving me perfunctory orders to get out. I'm not moving, they must know that by now. A few nurses come and go. They agree upon leaving the mask on the bedside table. They keep him plugged, even though the birds are chanting, now.

 

_Beep, beep, beep, beep._

 

 

Malcolm is talking. He's answering quietly, no, it doesn't hurt, yes, the chest feels heavy, yes, I see your finger, no, I don't want to throw up. I feed upon the sound of his voice.

Eventually they all leave, because it's about five am and they all want to go home. They tell me I should go too. I tell them to fuck off. He smiles. Oh _God_ , he smiles.

 

We stay silent for one minute, staring at each other. I lower my gaze first, I loose.

 

-”Did you hear all of it?” I pry, superbly failing at not giving a fuck again.

 

-”Yes.” he says.

 

I wince, eyes pressed close. Fuck.

When I open them again, Malcolm is still looking at me, in thought. Silence is getting close to his usual, already, again. I almost see him inspecting his old crumbled walls, picking up a stone, and placing it on another. Picking one more, placing it above the fist one. No.

 

Oh, _I'll have none of that._

 

-”Don't.”

 

-”What?”

 

-”Your walls, your cage. Your castle of silence, your hideaway, your armour. Don't bring it back. Not here, not now. Speak to me, Malcolm. Don't deny me. Tell me.”

 

-”Tell you what?

 

-”I don't care. Just talk.”

 

He opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again and sighs, eyes sliding to the side. I win.

 

Fair game.

 

He grabs one of my hands and plays with it, as much as the tubes allow him to. He's not cold anymore. Not so much. He's soft. That's how I want to die. I want to die with his hand in mine.

 

-”I noticed you long before I ever talked to you. In the bar”, he finally says quietly. “I was there the week before, but you didn't see me. I wasn't much of a Casanova, never have been. I needed time to find something clever to say. Thing is, I never found anything, you know. That pissed me off immensely, so I ended up yelling at you for the first reason that came to my mind. I'd have tried something else if that hadn't worked. All I wanted was your attention. You were quite a sight. You still are.”

 

-”Why didn't you tell me? You never told me. You fucking got married, for God's sake !”

 

His face clouds up, and he averts his gaze some more. I am hanging on the thread of his voice. I feel like I could suffocate if he stops talking.

 

-”I... sooner or later, the job required.... You know how it works. You need a flawless reputation. Show no weak spot. I thought if I provided her with everything she'd want, she wouldn't ask for too much love and maintain a proper façade. She was good-looking in garden parties. She was dumb enough to do as she was told. I though, at some point, we'd both agree on having our own affairs and not speaking aloud. I intended to come back to you after a while. But you got married too, and she never wanted a lover. She wanted me, God knows why.”

 

He coughs again, and I fetch him a glass of water. I watch him drink in silence, marvelling at the small moves of his throat.

 

-”I only got married to piss you off” I grumble.

 

-”You had two fucking _children_ !”

 

_Beep-beep-beep-beep!_

Oh.

 

The birds say calm the fuck down. I breathe, laying one soothing hand on his heaving chest.

 

-”I fucked up.” I sigh. “But now they're here, they're bonny, me lasses. Love them. I just never wanted all of this. I wanted you.”

 

A drop of water is rolling down his chin. I'm licking it clean before I even think of it. He sighs. I grab the sheets with both hands to stop myself from devouring him. _He's in a fucking hospital bed, for God's sake_.

 

 

-”You've had me.”

 

-”Yea. Rather had to fight for that, eh?”

 

-”You still have me”

 

-”Will I have you forever?”

  
_Do you even love me, Malcolm?_

 

I'm pushing my luck, but it's now or never. He's still dizzy with sickness, his walls down at his feet, his armies defeated, his eyes into mine and both his hands around a glass of water. I remember pieces of prayers, and stitch them together in a confused, messy litany. It's been such a long time since I've read that ancient book. What's a book of laws and promises compared to the low, rumbling voice of Malcolm Tucker?

 

From Glasgow to London, from that bar to this moment. All those years, coming together right to that room.

 

_All those years._

 

Slowly, he dips one finger in the glass, and brushes it on his lips, moistening the damaged skin.

Then, he leans froward and kisses me, as he kissed me the first time, at the beginning of days, and let there be light.

 

-”I love you” he speaks against my lips. “I always have.”

 

And the gates of Heaven unlock, and the Sun blesses the Earth. Angels sing, all hail the King.

 

I think I'm crying.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? It's all sweet from now on. The rollercoaster is over. Hope you enjoyed the ride. 
> 
> There's not much more to follow. Only sweet things.  
> A bit of family, a bit of work, and a bit of smut, because I promised so. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you all, again and again, for making this piece of crap, written of sick leave, something much more. I wouldn't have done it so long if you hand't reacted this way. So, basically, this is all for you.


	6. Ten days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the sweetness I promised.  
> It's very sweet, very far from everything I've done so far. It's a challenge for me, be merciful. 
> 
> Not as intense as past chapters, but you learn a bit about Malcolm's past, and take some rest from all the angst. 
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy in peace !

 

 

_**-Ten days -** _

 

**Day six : waffle**

 

 

Three hours and a half later, I wake up again, I'm in that chair, my back hurts like fucking hell, and the birds are chanting. I look at Malcolm, and he's giving me half a smile above a breakfast plate that looks fucking disgusting. He has obviously struggled to the bottom of the yoghurt, but hasn't been strong enough for the jam sandwich. I understand. This jam looks like fucking sliced placenta.

 

-”I can get out and fetch you a waffle” I grumble, hangover voiced. The Malcolm Tucker Tolerated Food List has exactly six items, but waffles are definitely in it.

 

He hesitates, slowly pushing the plate aside on a weird rolling table, and as he parts his lips to speak, the door creaks open, and Moira walks in. She's carrying a paper bag and you know what, I bet my next three wages there's a fucking waffle in it.

 

At the sight of Malcolm awake, she grows three shades paler, her eyes widen, and her lips tremble a wee bit. I can't see Malc's face, but I have a very clear view of his hands gripping the table, and his knuckles are fucking white. No word is said for fifteen unbelievable seconds, until Moira whispers something like “how long?” and Malcolm lets out a croaky “ four hours”.

 

Then, the rest of the Tucker Psycho Circus follows in, and thank God, Karen is actually a human being, leaping in joy and running to the bed to hug her brother.

 

-”Malcolm ! Oh Holy Mary, Malcolm. I never thought...

 

The hugs lasts for a minute and Malc's face is a whole fucking book, three volumes and a sequel, about personal space and reputation and emotional display. I can't help smirking. She switches on the question shower right after, and he nods, mostly, muttering the shortest replies imaginable. While talking, she grabs the child and lifts her up so she can sit on the edge of the bed, and something happens to Malcolm's eyes, something beautiful, that I've only seen for Sam, once or twice. They smile, I think. Something like that. They light up, and they smile.

 

-”Hey, Princess”, he says. “How fast you've grown. My, should I call you your Majesty now?”

 

The wee lass is absolutely beaming, devouring Malc with delighted eyes, but she shakes her head vigorously.

-”Nah, I like Princess better.”

 

I realize that's the first time I hear her voice. I was expecting the usual annoying little girl high-pitched sounds, but she speaks quietly. Of course. She's half Tucker, after all. Strong genes don't lie.

 

That's only because I've been his shadow for seven years that I can see he has no idea what to do. For anyone else, he's casually rearranging the girl's dress, with long, elegant, though weak fingers. The questions shower goes on for a few more minutes, and he wonderfully dodges everything about the three days of fever, the oceans of blood on the office floor, the dying at work, or even the job itself, by the way.

 

At some point, he coughs, badly, and I'm going for a glass of water in a fucking second, rolling eyes at myself. Gasping at Malcolm's spasms and laboured breathing, Karen withdraws troops, whispering apologies and carrying the child three steps back.

 

Moira waits for him to catch his breath, drink half a glass and stop shivering, then walks close, never touching, but gently placing the paper bag on Malcolm's lap. She looks like she's appraising the state of him for a whole minute, complete scan, eyes, hands, chest. She doesn't even spare a glance for the machines, focused on the lines on Malcolm's skin. When he seems fit enough for her, she speaks :

 

-”Yesterday we thought you were dying.”

 

No blame, no subtext. Just laying down a fact.

 

-”Looks like I was. Why else would you be there?” he replies, same tone of no-tone-at-all, except for the hoarse voice and broken vowels.

 

She nods, humming shortly. Silence. Chanting birds. Looking closely, I see that Moira hasn't slept. I know that face; she has the Tucker face of brewing storms. Something's coming. I sit back in my chair, wishing I could fucking melt in it.

 

-”Yesterday you would have died, son, and we couldn't have answered one question about your life.” she speaks again, rumbling and unstoppable, like distant storms of Scotland. “I want no more of this”.

 

Her inhuman gaze locks with his, and skies collide. Storms unfold. He holds on, chin up, eyebrows fierce, but I've been his shadow, and I know, I know. His castle is on the ground, torn apart, blown away. He is standing alone among stones and gravel, dust on his feet. He's helpless, and he's fucking exhausted. Well, Moira doesn't know I asked the very same of him four hours ago.

 

He's considering the stones at his feet again. Building a first emergency wall would take minutes. I know what he's thinking of. He can just say no. Say he's tired, cough once more, and they'll drop the subject. Pick one of his Level One lies, the shortest, the easiest will suffice. Play for time. Next time they'll make a move, he'll have his first dungeon standing. They won't stand a chance.

 

He's measuring options, his tired brain jumping back to old routines. Spin Face #1 in the making.

 

I wish I could say something. Come on, Malcolm, you did it for me, you can do it again. It's your mother, she's fucking alive. She's not a corpse crawling back into nightmares to grab your ankle.

 

Like mine, _like mine_.

 

 

She's there, talk to her. God knows how the fuck I wish I could talk to mine. Talk. Don't you dare pick up that stone again, leave that. You're safe, there's not a soul in the room that doesn't love you. Speak, for God's sake. Your years of silence have pushed you so close to death I almost smelled soil in your hair. Enough. E _fucking_ nough.

 

But I say nothing. I just lay a hand on his arm, and he jumps. His eyes meet mine, and he's standing there among stones, one already in his hand, ready to build again. I just shake my head. Not much more I can do.

 

His jaw tightens, the vein on his forehead throbbing just like the old days, one, two seconds.

 

_Thump._

 

The stone hits the floor.

 

 

-”What do you want to know?” he asks his mother, turning back to her, but leaving my hand right where it is.

 

Her face lightens up, and she's so much younger, and she's fucking beautiful. She gestures towards the waffle bag. First things first. Malcolm rolls eyes, but obeys. He rips the bag open, breaks the waffle in two and starts taking small, patient bites. “Satisfied?” his wary eyes say.

 

She nods. Then, she lifts a hand towards me and speaks, clear as day, turning my guts into liquid.

 

-”I want to know about your friend.”

 

I withdraw my hand as if his sleeve was molten lava, but too late, too late. Fuck, Moira, you unforgiving _warlord_. Really, it had to be here and now? You couldn't fucking wait ?

Of course she couldn't. She's clever. She knows the castle won't stay in pieces for long. Sooner or later he'll go back to work, and he won't do it without a fortress, all new, magnificent, reborn. Right now he's raw and open wide, laid bare upon the ruins, maybe for a few days.

Maybe for a few hours.

 

He turns his face to me and between the lines around his eyes I can read a thousand calculations. He picks up lies, drops them, makes up schemes, gives them up. A dozen Spin Faces are built and destroyed in seconds, like browsing through a fucking inventory of deceit. At the end, he's standing in despair, his masks at his feet among stones and rubble, and I almost hear his willpower breaking.

 

Leaving the waffle on his lap, he slowly reaches for my hand and holds it. He's cold, and the machines are chanting about his heart beating much, much too fast. Oh, fuck, he's gonnae make it.

 

A trickster he is, genius monster and killer king, but a coward he has never been.

 

-”Jamie and I have been together for seven years.

 

Karen gasps, just a little.

She makes funny swaying moves with her finger, pointing at me, pointing at him.

 

-”Together, like... ?

 

-”Yes” Malcolm quietly states. “Like that.”

 

-”Seven years?” she repeats, incredulous slowly moving towards upset. “Malcolm, when exactly did you intend to tell us?”

 

-”Never”.

 

-”Why? You don't think we'd approve?” she adds, upset turning into hurt.

 

Twelve burning seconds of silence. A look for me, intense, heavy. Vulnerable and shivering upon the ruins of his fortress. Fuck, I want to hold the twat so hard it hurts.

 

-”I don't think I really wanted to know.” he whispers.

 

His sentence isn't even finished, and Karen is already back to hug him. He frowns and lets out a small growl. She hugs him tighter. _Heh_ , I like her more and more.

 

-”Of course it's fine, you daft goose. Oh, Malcolm, I never guessed. I never guessed! That speaks about how far we are from each other, aye. Please, Malcolm, Mum is right, don't do that again.”

 

Well, talking about the efficiency of fortresses, I've been with him for seven years and he only said he loved me four hours ago. He was far, you bet he was. Far from _everyone_.

 

Now, the walls are breached and there's a fucking tsunami rushing in. He must be in panic.

 

Except he's just tired. He sighs a wee bit, and dares a furtive smile. He briefly kisses his sister's hair, then, and that will be all. She goes back to her daughter, half willingly, half pushed away.

Moira didn't move.

 

She allows everyone twenty seconds of peace, before picking up the remaining half of the waffle and placing it in Malc's hand, the one that isn't death-gripping mine. Persistent is a weak, weak word for the unshakable Moira Tucker. I can't help gaping at her in amazement. Random pictures of what could have been Malcolm's childhood flash before my eyes, and I understand so much, now.

 

Malcolm hisses and snorts and sighs, but he takes another bite, tamed. He keeps his eyes on her, as if awaiting judgement. And just by looking at Karen I guess she's just the same.

 

Cold, stern eyes don't leave her son's face, and slowly she asks :

 

-”Are you happy, Malcolm?”

 

This one takes some time. He looks lost for a minute, gaze down, browsing inventory, loading, please wait. His face goes from puzzled to confused, and the machines beep faster. He coughs, and I almost tell them all to fuck off, because he's fucking _tired_ , and what they're asking of him is fucking _huge_.

 

 

-”Sometimes, yes”, he breathes.

 

I sense he's on the verge of breaking too, and I close my eyes, because we're in for either a long, vicious fuck off bollocking, or an exhausted plea for mercy, and none of that sounds good.

But before he speaks further, the quiet, birdlike voice of Maidie is heard from the other end of the room, and she bravely takes everyone's sudden attention, eyes defiant, bunny hugged tight:

 

-”Do I get one question too?”

 

 

Malc lets out a wee laugh, half coughing the last part.

-”Yes, Princess. Anything.”

 

 

-”When will you come at home with us?”

 

_Ouch._

 

Do they fucking mean to _kill_ him or what?

 

He doesn't answer straight away, he turns to me and whispers “Call Sam”. I nod. I don't get his point, but I nod. He turns back to her, then, and I know he's smiling, I see that in the wee girl's eyes. His shoulders tremble, his hands white as the sheets. He takes one last dreamy bite of that waffle, and the machines speak about a tired heart missing a few beats from time to time. He needs sleep, fuck off, _please_ , he has given enough.

 

-”I will see if I can come back to Glasgow with you for a few days when they'll let me out of here.”

 

Unbelieving whispers are immediately covered by the wordless cry of utter joy sang by Maidie. The girl jumps to the bed, crawls upon it and kisses Malcolm's cheek, and that's too much for him. He closes his eyes, sinks back into his pillow with the heaviest sigh I ever heard from him, and moves no more. There's just his hand briefly squeezing Maidie's, and he's asleep in thirty seconds.

 

The machines say it was close. I almost politely shove them out, accepting every price they ask, including joining them for lunch, yes, yes, just fuck off, you lot are exhausting.

 

 

Once the door is closed behind them, I pause for one blessed minute of silence, watching his lean, sleeping frame under the crushing weight of those tubes, and considering the endless seas of chaos that the first red splatter of blood on the office floor unleashed in our lives.

 

Maybe for the better. Who the fuck knows.

 

_Sam._

 

I pull out my phone.

 

 

 

 

**Day ten : M6**

 

 

_Well we come down to the valley_

_Got our babies in our arms_

 

 

I am driving up the M6 to Glasgow in that rental car Sam found for us, Malcolm sitting on my side, half looking through the window, half checking his twin-Blackberry. Karen, Moira and Maidie are in the back, most of them asleep.

 

_Me and my cousin, me and my brother_

_My little sister too_

_Come looking for the rainbow._

 

 

That's Chris Rea on the radio. Malcolm loves Chris Rea. The Malcolm Tucker Appreciated Music List bears seven items, including four old and obscure punk rock bands, all long dead from OD and cirrhosis. Pink Floyd, no kidding. Depeche Mode, I think. And Chris Rea.

 

We agree about Chris Rea. Not about Al Jolson. Never about Bing Crosby. Sometimes about Gershwin.

 

We'll be passing Tamworth soon, and the lines of worry on his brow have softened a bit.

 

It hasn't been easy.

 

 

 

Sam arrived at the hospital half an hour after I hung up the phone, beaming relief. He was still sleeping, but she was happy with holding his hand for a while and hearing my -somewhat cropped- story about his waking up and the whole Tucker family fucking mess of an interrogation.

 

I had to tell her a bit about the Blackberry incident on the phone, tough, and she brought the Twin. An exact copy of Malcolm's, she always keeps synchronized and fully charged in case of one of Malcolm's loss-of-temper-Blackberry-stress test failure.

 

I already said how much I fucking love this woman.

 

She brought also the Essential Office Stack of Papers, 20 sheets to read and sign no more, mostly there as an attempted demonstration of business being sortable without him for a few days. I asked for news, and she waved her hand dismissively.

 

-”Nothing to worry about” she said. “Well, Malcolm would have been pissed off to murder levels, but nothing truly dangerous happened. Nicola took advantage of one policy brainstorming without Malcolm to actually have some of her ideas voted. She's in the Telegraph with her idea about bookstore vouchers for lowest-grades children. It's not her worst idea, and it's bankable, as long as no one knows about her two youngest daughter's average of F. Malcolm knows. He'd skin her with a coffee spoon. Whatever happens don't give him Telegraph or Independent before Wednesday.

 

-”Aye. How about that Reeder cunt?

 

-”Well you were right, he wants Malcolm's job very hard, but fortunately he's still very much terrified of him. So by broadcasting news about him not being dead, and very much watching every TV channel and newspaper from the hospital, I managed to scare him away from any leaking attempt. I said Malcolm would know it's him. I'd be glad if Malcolm could give him a bit of old'time fright on the phone, though, whenever he feels good enough. My fake news are beginning to look desperate.”

 

-”Oh, he'll do that. That'll be part of the fucking treatment.”

 

-”Julius asked if he could come visit someday. He's been very nice, helped a lot keeping everyone in check, including the PM. Very much of a shadow worker, he is. I didn't know Malcolm and him were friends.”

 

-”They're not. I mean, I don't know. All I've seen of them is duels of wit and attempted murders. Well, yes. Maybe they're friends. The bald fucker can come. I owe him for his nose, anyways.

 

 

 

She could stay until Malcolm woke up, this time, and there I realized it was sunday. When he opened his eyes and saw her face he smiled fondly, and fuck, _yes_ , had a small move for her, with his left hand, something like a beckoning. She stepped close, unsure, and his voice croaked something like “You can hug me, girl, I'm on a fucking roll these times around”.

With a little squee she grabbed him and lifted him up from his pillow in the Doom Embrace. He didn't even groan.

 

They spent some time there whispering and fumbling through cleverly-chosen newspapers and files. She took dutiful notes of his every opinion, curse or blessing, sparing a whole A4 sheet for her to-do list. There was some bollocking in order, and he looked at me then. I nodded. Sometimes he just said nothing, biting his lower lip, eyes half closed. Thinking. It was halfway between magnificent and outright terrifying, seeing the Spider Awoken, webs already forming from each one of his fingers, up to every possible corner of media coverage, even in this hospital bed that almost had been his last ever.

 

Three days after his death.

 

After a while, in spite of Sam's carefully presented data and very soft storytelling, his whispering grew into clear voice, then into mild growling, and the conversation somehow shifted from “just read that” to “don't get up Malcolm”. Before I knew it, he was trying to get out of bed, muttering something about ripping eyeballs.

 

Having him lay back in bed and forget about finding a suit, getting back there and slaughter cunts required a fucking intervention. I remember a medic passing by, checking on him, pressing him down on the bed, promising to unplug some wires and machines if he swore he wouldn't try to get up. Bargaining has always been more clever than pure authority with Malc, and the medic unplugged the chanting birds, taking away a vague promise of not getting up, except for the fucking bathroom. Sam and I, we stood there for one more hour, joining forces to demonstrate that I could do the phone bollocking, and she could do the management. Nothing was going to collapse if he got one week of fucking post-death rest.

 

He listened, right, he did. But something wild in his eyes told us he wasn't convinced.

 

It took two more things to get him to lower shields.

 

First, Julius. He came to visit on monday morning, and on that day Malcolm already had a much better face. The angry red lines around his eyes had receded a bit, and he was beginning to eat properly. I'm glad the bald fucker didn't see bloodless, zombie Tim Burton Malcolm. They shook hands, and Malcolm mocked his bandaged nose. Julius laughed, and talked sweetly, with his soft, affable voice. It did wonders on Malc. Since when did Julius fucking Nicholson' s voice calm him down? I nearly punched the bald twat again.

 

But, well, it worked. Julius told him he had everyone keeping calm and carrying on, including the PM, sending regards by the way, and Malcolm trusted him. He fucking trusted him. Okhay, they were friends, all right. Set aside the slow pain of jealousy, I admitted I could at least grant Malcolm one fucking _friend_. Julius told him nothing important was meant to happen before first election planning in twelve days, and Malcolm nodded. He still gave Julius what looked like a list of things to do for him, and Julius took his fucking Ipad to send memos. Malcolm smiled when Julius got up to leave, sending him away with a joyful line of wild mockery. Julius rolled eyes and came to shake my hand.

-”No hard feelings for the...?” I asked, gesturing around his nose.

 

-”No hard feelings at all, James”, he purred, “though I won't expect no for an answer to my next invitation to dinner for both of you.”

 

I shrugged. The man was fucking _loaded_ , and I love free food.

 

 

 

 

Second, the third visit from Tucker Psycho Circus. No Spanish Inquisition this time, only Maidie, who had made a drawing for him at the hotel. This was basically sticks and balls, but, somehow, with clever use of height difference and grey colour pencil, there was no mistake to be made. That was him, holding Maidie's hand. On Maidie's side, Karen, because of brown mess of hair, and Moira, because grey, but smaller, and in a dress.

On the left side, I didn't dare to ask, but the beige pullover was perfectly rendered. That very much looked like me.

 

-”That's all of us going home!” she chirped, beaming pride.

 

_What, me too?_

Moira must have seen my face, because she extended her hand to me and smiled.

 

-”We will be delighted to have you coming too, Mr. MacDonald. After all, you are family now.”

 

The hell I'll ever be a fucking _Tucker_ , but Malcolm's eyes looking at the drawing were alight with mirth, so I shook that small hand and offered my services as a driver to Glasgow.

 

 

After that, Malcolm was defeated, and couldn't do anything but confirm, when Maidie asked one last time if he'd come. Hugs ensued. He endured.

 

The hospital kept him three more days, pumping him with antibios and vitamins. The food was disgusting, so I sneaked out to find items on the Tucker Tolerated Food List. Sam came back a few time for spinning sessions. Julius phoned twice. Everything was going according to the Spider's plan.

They withdrew all machines and moved him to a regular room on first floor on the morning of the third day. On the evening, I got back to his flat, with clear orders to pack some of his things and get a full night's sleep. I came back with his suitcase and a change of clothes for him. That grey fleece and flannel shirt. Fuck, he looked dashing in those. Right before we left the room, he grabbed my arm and performed our first kiss in front of his family. I think I fucking blushed, and I hate him for that.

 

Maidie was going to ask something about it, but she's been ushered to the car by a giggling Karen.

 

 

 

And here we are, Friday morning, M6 highway to Glasgow. Chris Rea.

 

 

I'm driving back to fucking Glasgow. Only got back there four times in ten years, tops, for MacDonalds family business, two weddings, two funerals. I'm still struggling with the fact that I'm heading for the Tucker estate this time, as Malcolm's official life partner, balloons and ribbons and shit. I mean, what? We'll get matching mugs and family pictures? The fuck are we gonnae do up there?

 

No matter how many questioning glances I throw him, he doesn't speak a word about it.

 

The Twin Blackberry does ring a lot, but he only picks up half of the time, a quick glance in the rearview mirror to check out who's sleeping, and voice down if one of them does. Not a single line of bollocking since London. I can't really tell if he's happy or not, but at least he looks quieter.

 

The rain starts pouring like fucking hell. Welcome to Scotland, fuckers.

 

 

There comes one hour where the three women are sleeping, and I was fucking waiting for that, because I may not be as brave as he is concerning display in front of family eyes. Well for my defence, it's not _my_ family. I wouldn't give a shit if it was mine. The MacDonalds are a bunch of punks anyways. The Tuckers are something else entirely. One of my hands leaves the wheel and brushes his hair, slowly stroking down to his thigh, where it lays until covered by his. He smiles, and through the wind and rain I hear his “don't worry” just like in a dream.

 

-”I love you”, I say. Because it's a dream anyways. I can do whatever the fuck I want.

 

He grins, checks out the backseat, and leans on my side to gently kiss my ear.

 

 

The shiver it gives me almost sends all of us in the fucking ditch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the road, it's not exactly Glasgow, it's Shawlands, but it's fine. Karen has a flat in the city centre, but it's too small for all of us. They guide me to the real thing, the one and only Malcolm's childhood home; Moira's house.

It's one of those quiet streets, you know, with houses that all look a wee bit the same, though this one is different, because Moira fucking loves flower pots, and she put those literally everywhere.

 

Something's small, but, what else to fucking expect, cosy and warm and sparkling clean. About 50 square feet of miracle named private garden and fuck, there's even a small terrace with fucking wooden chairs on it.

The house must have been bought when it was worth nothing, like, back in the 50's. It's worth fuckloads now, I guess, though everything, from the old knitted plaids on the sofa, the ancient barely-colour telly to the carefully looked after 50's dining room table and chairs screams how poor they've always been. Educated, in good taste, whatever you want, but fucking _low_ , and I know what low means. Not one single fucker from the MacDonald clan could lift his fat ass long enough to earn two tenners in a row. Except me, it would seem, but I'm a traitor, right? I left, I moved, I abandoned holy grounds.

 

Following the steps of that madman in a long coat.

 

 

Following again, following always, as he steps into the living room, trying very hard not to look around, bearing an unconvincing Detached Face #2.

 

-”How long since you left here?” I whisper, putting our suitcases down between two unmatched plaid-loaded armchairs.

-”How long since the Misfit Bar Parking Lot?” he asks back, eyes distant.

 

 _Fuck_. Twenty-five years, Malcolm, really? Even _I_ did drive back a few times.

 

I say nothing, but he reads the scold on my face clearly enough to wince and look away. His next breath is a wheeze, and that's enough for me to let go of every blame left alive. I let one hand slide along his back. It's all right, luv. The job, the fortress, I know, I know.

 

Moira, very proud, shows us the spare room. It's obviously made for Karen and Maidie, because everything in there is fucking light purple and beige and cute and shit. Malcolm unleashes a small riot, demanding the convertible sofa in rebellious defiance, claiming that “girls need beds”, “we're fine downstairs” and whatnot.

 

Everything's in vain, as Karen and Maidie are already unpacking in the living room, shouting “You are sick, Malcolm, you take the bed and that is final!” from downstairs.

One stern look from Moira completes the circle, and she has me carrying our luggage to the room with kind, yet unyielding words. Malcolm sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose the way he does at the office, where all bollocking meets its end, because sometimes there's no point.

 

 

Later on, we're left alone for a while, because of the dinner cooking I suppose. I mostly spend that time unpacking, Malcolm vaguely guiding me from one of the separate beds, where he had to lie down a moment, because the wheezing was turning to bad, bad coughing.

 

I have him take the fucking sandbag of meds the doctors prescribed for the next weeks, and maybe we kiss a little, whenever he could breathe quietly enough.

He truly looks good in that fleece, that grey shade doing something nice to his eyes, and he kinda seems less fucking Evil Overlord without the suit, so, at some point of the kissing, I have to stop my own hands, already under it all, on his warm chest, looking for those sweet spots between his ribs, that can make him moan if I stroke them right. He's barely fucking _recovering_ , for fuck's sake.

 

-”M'sorry” I mumble. “It's been long since last time we...”

 

-”It's been two weeks at most” he huffs, half laughing.

 

-”Wha'? It's fucking long.”

 

He snorts, and rolls eyes a bit.

I'm sure they all think he's something like a bloodthirsty pervert sex predator at the office, but fucking plot-twist, cunts, he's not. Most of the times it's even hard to get him fucking _interested_. I mean, he's good, fuck, he's very good, but he's just, I don't know, generally detached, and it's fucking painful, because I want to shag him basically every hour of the day. It takes alignment of planets, a hot bath and some begging to have him surrendering, and even then, it takes some fucking time and some fucking technique to have him come, but it's worth every second, like, ten times. He's flustered, and pliant and fucking submissive, he's gorgeous and graceful, and he fucking _reveres_ me for as long as it lasts, plus one hour or two after that if I've been good. And, to put it mildly, I'm often good.

He's hard work, but he's been having me coming back for more for seven years.

 

Thinking about it, he's been having me so for twenty-five.

 

I give him a long, precise look, very clear upon the fact that I'm not dropping the idea for long, and I get up, heading for the door. I might as well help in the kitchen, if I can't let him rest.

Right before I close the door, his voice grabs my mind, like only his can do :

-”Jamie.”

  
I peek back at him. He looks exhausted, but those lines of worry, I think they're gone, now, so I smile like a fucking moron.

 

-”I'll make it up to you.” he whispers with a finger on his lips, and trust me on this, he never promises unless he fucking delivers.

 

I get down to the kitchen with that moronic smile glued on my face.

 

 

 

**Day Fifteen: King**

 

 

Most of the times, he just sleeps. It's like twenty-five years of coffee-fueled whitenights and botched up catnaps taking their toll now. He just lays down in bed, or in the couch, and drifts off listening to Maidie's cartoons on the telly, or Karen's endless praise of her daughter's grades, drawings, school plays, or even fucking vocabulary. He even fell asleep in the garden. They gave him one of those canvas chairs Maidie stuffed with cushions and plaids. He watched her play with a bucket of water for about one hour, then he just closed his eyes and he went so quiet I had to check his breathing twice.

 

I'm almost pissed at him for leaving me alone with his Tucker Psycho Circus, but I'm not really, because he's fucking peaceful, and I don't think I've seen him that way in twenty-five years.  
The endless dance of first times, since the very first blood rose on the office floor, never ceases to amaze me.

 

I was expecting a quick rebuilding of the fortress, with added new features against future attacks, because Malcolm isn't a man who doesn't learn from his mistakes.

I was expecting him to slowly retreat to silence, grafted on his Blackberry, and start walking away from me to bollock office cunts on the phone.

I was expecting him to be fully operational in three days, King behind the thickest walls, already packing up, Spin Face #4 completed, throwing excuses to his mother's silent pleas.

 

I was expecting everything. _But this._

 

In a thousand years I couldn't guess what the fuck he has done with all those stones he had at his feet. It's like they've never fucking been there.

 

 

***

 

 

 

On sunday morning, I found him sitting at the kitchen table, a red colour pencil in hand, teaching Maidie how to draw a cat. I leaned over his shoulder and fuck, he was fucking good at it. The fact that I never knew hit me like a nasty punch. Well, in seven years of being his shadow I'm pretty sure he never doodled a single thing, but still. Maybe I should try and talk to him one of these nights, instead of pursuing him for another shag.

He drew the cat, and a dog, and a fucking perfect portrait of her next to that. The girl positively wailed in joy, and tried to copy the originals, if not with the same realism, with a definitely better choice of colours, to my eyes at least. A pink dog with green stripes, now that's something _genuinely_ punk.

 

I laughed a bit, and I shouldn't have, for the wee lass glanced at me for what could be the first time since hospital lobby, and shyly asked me to draw a princess. I fucking can't hold a pencil. I tried, and it was lame. Even the girl pouted.

-”He has other talents” Malcolm said, saving me from shame.

 

-”What does he do? Can he sing?” the girl chirped.

 

-”No, he...He's good at scaring people”, he tried, obviously hoping a change of subject.

 

Hah. You wish. The child jumped on her chair, clapping hands, a smile of utter delight splitting her face. “Scare me, Scare me, Jamie !” she said. Oh, well done, Malc.

Pleased to have my happy hour of show-off, I opened my mouth for what I do best, and got death-blocked by Malcolm's mighty Don't You Dare look. All-right, _fine_.

As a plan B, I pulled out my ugliest face, fingers in mouth, wet tongue and crossed eyes. The girl bursted into laughter, claiming I wasn't even scary. I was deemed funny, and hugged this instant. I retreated into the garden, catching a glimpse of one of the happiest smiles Malcolm had ever made.

 

 

***

 

 

On Monday lunchtime, I was asked by Moira to lay the table. Mostly, I guess, because the others were nowhere to be seen. She hadn't talked to me lots, you see. Smiling, always asking if I needed anything, for sure, but I never got my part of the Spanish Inquisition I did fear a wee bit.

She just asked if I intended to visit my own family while I was here. I shrugged. She asked a pair of questions about where I did live, no more. Either she _did_ know more about me than she seemed to, or she just gave no shit. I was fine with both.

 

Laying five unmatched plates on the five unmatched table mats, my eyes caught a frame on the dresser. Fuck, it was _him_. The Misfit Bar him. With that leather jacket he'll be denying for the rest of his life, and that mess of brown hair I voted for president of sexy things. He was looking vaguely annoyed at the camera, hands fiddling with what seemed to be a notepad. I almost heard the Misfit music coming back in slow pulsing waves, I almost smelled that smoke again. God, he was gorgeous on that night.

He still is. Maybe even more, now. Grey hair and worry lines make him look more intense, more powerful. Fuck, I don't think I even have one single picture of him. If I want one, someday, I'll just have to fucking Google it. Fucking shame.

Right next to the frame, there was another one, smaller, chipped on the sides, old as life. There was a young boy in there, like, I don't know, fifteen, or something, in blurred black and white. He was holding the hand of a wee girl that looked like a thinner Maidie, and looking at the camera with wild, angry eyes.

So fucking _mad_.

 

-”He has always been so.”

 

I nearly fucking dropped the last plate on the floor. My doubts about that woman being a fucking teleporting alien were confirmed as I stared at her in raw fear. She didn't notice. Her eyes were on the old picture, and she kept on talking, five wide glasses securely piled up in her hands.

 

-”Dear Malcolm has always been so bitter, so furious. Ever since his father died. Andrew drank too much, you see, and brought us nothing but hardships. One day his car crashed in a tree on his way back here, and Malcolm didn't even cry. He was just angry. He was fourteen, and his father left me with nothing to raise my children with. He had to work very quick. And, oh, work he did. He's always been very bright, you know. The teachers told me he was gifted.”

 

No kidding. You should see him now, Ma'am. You should see him now, after fifty glorious years of pure rage. King in the Castle, armies at his feet, his name bringing fear to a hundred souls.

 

Eyes alight with fury, shoes sticky with blood.

 

-”He always found a way”, she went on. “Even when we all lost hope at home, he always found a way to bring back enough money to finish the week. Every month, every day, he went out to find something, anything, he never took no for an answer. He fought, he threatened if he had to. From delivery boy to freelance columnist, from press office to whatever scary business he's in now. Everything he did, he did for us, that you must know. For me and Karen, first, then for Maidie too. He had to provide for all of us, since Maidie's father happened to be no better man than his own. He had to be brother and father, he had to be everything. He managed, you see, we were never in need. But the price was this anger eating him alive time and time again, until it became pretty much everything he is.

 

 

Oh.

So _that's_ how it began. I always wondered.

Every legend has a beginning. Malcolm Tucker begins in that old ragged frame, with that boy from another time, alive with the storm brewing in his eyes.

 

 

Moira's inhuman stare turned to me then, and it wrinkled a bit. I panicked, awaiting judgement, but she ended up smiling, I don't know why. She's a roller-coaster, that woman.

-”He cannot stop, now, can't he? He punched his way up to the top and now he's trapped. He has become anger, and anger has become his job.”

 

Never Malcolm had been so wonderfully summarized.

 

-”Well”, I tried, laying down the last plate, “he nearly died. He's a bit different, right now. Pretty much everything of what he's build around himself has been knocked down, so... Maybe, if he goes for it, he can change a bit.”

 

-”Well he has you, now. He never loved, before. He surely never loved that London fishwife of his. Now he does love someone, maybe he'll find some peace.”

 

And with that, she walks back to the kitchen with a fucking Shaolin smile, telling me to call them all for lunch.

 

Sitting around, Malc seemed to think I looked weird, and glared at his mother for a while, only to be given a serene face and another serving of corn salad. He frowned, but didn't dare to bring the subject up. And you know what, I found that fucking terrifying, the fact that there actually is someone on this fucking planet with a power of will Malcolm Tucker _bows down_ to.

 

 

***

 

 

On wednesday evening, I thought he was sleeping again, as I didn't see him getting out of the bed where I left him in around five pm, at the end of another ritual of meds and kisses. Maidie had lost her kind of cheaper barbie doll thingy in the garden, and I set off to find it before her bedtime, under Moira's blessing smile and Maidie's wet admiring eyes.

 

Behind the corner of the house, there she was, that stupid pink doll. I picked it up and brushed the dirt off it, until Malcolm's voice, right behind my back, made me freeze.

 

-”Come on, spit it out. I know you're pissed.”

 

I turned around. He wasn't speaking to me. He didn't even see me. There were wide sheets hanging in that part of the garden, and as the wind lifted them I could catch glimpses of him, holding a huge blue hamper full of laundry for his sister, handing her pieces of clothing one by one as she hanged them. Heh. _Cute._

-”I'm not pissed off.” Karen said, with a very pissed off voice.

 

-”'Ren, for fuck's sake, it's not because I haven't seen you in ages that I don't know that face. Say it.”

 

-”It's nothing, it's just... why did you hide so much from me? Malcolm I didn't even know you were gay!”

 

I literally sense the shock on Malcolm's face. I don't even need to see it. His voice breaks, his fidgeting silhouette very clear in the shadow theatre of sheets.

 

-” I... I'm not.” he whispers, very not sure of it all.

 

-”Well you never liked any woman. Certainly not that Emily you married, though I can't blame you for that part. The handful of girlfriends you brought here, you always messed up their names. You forgot the dates, never picked up the phone. We thought you were just distant. But I see how you look at Jamie now, I'm no fool, Malcolm. Look, maybe you've always liked men, just not knowing it until you met him? Frankly, you could have told me. I'm fine with that, you know ! As long as you're happy, I truly don't care if you are...”

 

 

-”I am not!”

 

His voice, halfway between angry and desperate, almost breaks my heart. He's panicking. Fuck, I didn't even dare to bring up that conversation once in twenty-five years since that kiss. I knew exactly what it would do to him, and I was fucking right, see?

 

-”I... I don't know, really. I found those women attractive. All of them. I just... found them all so fucking boring too. Jamie... Jamie is not. He's the only one who's not. I don't know, he is... we just match. We fit, together.”

 

-”There has been no other man you ever found to your liking?” Karen asks, soothing.

 

-”A few, maybe. There's a PM advisor back at the office, he has a nice voice, but... doesn't compare to Jamie.”

 

Julius fucking _Nicholson_? No fucking kidding. I take a deep breath. There will be time for this later.

 

-”So, you swing both ways, is that so?”

 

-”Maybe, yes. Why is it important?”

 

-”It is not. What is important is that I want to know you better, Malcolm. You are my brother. You literally raised me, for God's sake. I want to know about your love life, your hobbies, what you like to have for dinner, if you need a new scarf, small things that actually connect people in the same family, instead of empty cards at Christmas or emails from Samantha. You see?”

 

-”Yes.”

 

It was amazing, the voice he had. He was absolutely devoid of his eternal rage, and violence. He was humble and soft, as I've heard him be only two dozen times in my fucking life.

 

No stone wall in sight. _O, King in Glory, where is thou castle?_

 

-”You promise to phone a bit more? Or write, at least reply to Maidie's drawings?”

 

-”Yes.”

 

It's wasn't empty, he meant it, I heard that. It was tamed, but intense.

Fuck if he'd see me then, castle ruins or not, he'd be so fucking embarrassed he'd find a way to unscrew my fucking head. I got up and slid to the house. The last scene of the shadow theatre was what could only be a hug, the fiftieth since post-death awakening, _poor him_ , and moreover, made a bit awkward by the hamper. Applause, curtain.

 

 

***

 

 

 

Apart from that, those few days are, I must admit, the quietest I've spent with him, like, ever.

 

He still picks up the Blackberry for Sam, Julius, and a few office cunts. Once, for PM himself, I'm fine, thank you.

He walks to the next room, or further in the garden, and speaks quietly on the phone.

Again, not a single line of bollocking. He's fucking _zen,_ calmly laying down explanations and facts and to-do-lists and names and warnings, though, from what I could hear, his being away didn't mean those fuckers did find a way to their own fucking butthole with GPS and a flashlight.

 

Once he hangs up, he comes to us smiling, not a line of worry on his face, and goes back to whatever he was doing, from helping with Maidie's homework to – and that's fucking _hilarious_ \- cooking waffles for everyone. It's him, all right it's still him, but just as if time paused during one of those blessed hours, after hot bath and rough sex, when he's all relaxed, slow gracious moves, shy lowered stares, soft raspy voice and sweet sweet words. It's like five fucking days of a dream. Something in me senses it won't last, but I just tell that voice to shut the fuck up and let me enjoy it.

 

 

 

At night, we lay down in those weird, girly beds I pushed together in the middle of the room. I wanted to use only one, but he pushed me to the other, muttering about me not being able to control myself and him not wanting to do anything in her sister and niece's sheets. Point taken.

Still, he extends an arm to my bed every night, and doesn't sleep until I've grabbed it. We talk a wee bit, about his health, the office, the lasses. It's peaceful, I like it. And right before he closes his eyes, I'm allowed a time limited access to his bed, for a kiss, and his full body pressed to mine if I'm lucky. It gets me half mad with desire every fucking time, but I back off and turn away, catching my breath, just so he can't gloat about being always right about me.

 

-”I'll make it up to you” he said.

 

Well you'd better do that.

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday is the last day, I know that, because it happens, at around eleven am, and I know Paradise is Lost. We must pack up.

 

 

It's Reeder on the phone, but I don't think that's relevant. It's not a question of person, it's a question of time. It had to happen, every holiday has an end, every heaven a closing time.

 

 

It starts quietly, just like those last days, with him patiently explaining why no, Ollie can't just write Nicola's speech for her standing up for election without him reading it first. No, it isn't basic work, and yes, he wants a editable draft. No, there is no way Nicola and Ollie can “rehearse” anything before he has his say on the matter, and since when does Ollie write speeches, by the way?

 

It starts smooth, and Maidie, sitting at the garden table five yards behind him doesn't even lift her head from her drawing.

 

 

Then, it happens. Right in the middle of some bullshit line by Ollie's bullshit voice, something snaps in his eyes. In one hideous second I'll remember all my life in shivers, all those lines on his face come back, all at once. He ages ten years and loses ten pounds. He looks taller, stronger, and more fucking _malevolent_ than ever.

 

I hear someone whimper, and fuck, I think it's me.

 

He's shouting now, in that contained, venomous tone I know so well, oh, welcome back, _Spider._

 

-”Now listen, you horsecum-brained son of a twat! You will step away from every fucking kind of writing device, from your own laptop to the last fucking **Etch-a-Sketch** , and shove your hands up your fucking ass every time you think about typing one sentence of that speech ! And don't think you can fuck me, you limp-balled small pox urchin, because I might very well pop up behind your back tomorrow morning to shove a fucking Hoover up your inbox and suck your insides out like a fucking **sock** ! Now go back to counting your pubes and let actual grown-ups do the fucking **job**.

 

On that, he hangs up.

 

 

 

 

I'm _terrified_. You see, terrified as those animals on the road. They must know somehow they should just fuck off, but they stand and stare, unmoving, until the car blows up their fucking skull.

 

The bollocking was perfect. Balanced and flawless, in low rumbles and slow diction, in hatred and scorn. This was quintessential Malcolm, Deluxe package, First Class. And now, I'm standing there, deer in the headlights, searching his face for the dark silhouette of the Castle Reborn.

 

 

His head is tilted down, so I can't see his eyes. Oh Malcolm, _please_ , don't do that.

Don't go back in there alone, don't shut the door, don't lift the drawbridge. My love, I'm fucking tired, if only you knew. My eyes are worn out staring at your stone walls, higher than clouds, higher than skies. I'm sick of all the walking around, the calling, the waiting. I've seen Paradise, Malcolm, and I'm not sure I can just walk back to what it used to be. Please, just, _please..._

 

Maybe I won't always be strong enough to deserve you all over again.

 

 

 

Eyes down on his phone, he walks to me, and I know that walk. It's the walk of cracking bones and burning flesh, his long, black coat as a flag for all the malice of this earth. It's the walk I have followed for twenty years and more, soaked in the storm of his voice, oh, _Malcolm._

 

 

Is five days the best you can do? After red roses, after white eyes, after your death?

 

 

My love , if only you knew.

 

 

My vision blurs and fuck, I can't cry right now, he's just walking by me, he'll just...

 

I squeeze my eyes shut. I'm not ready for Spin face #1. Not now, not now, let me remember the smile you had when Maidie hugged me.

 

There's a hand on my cheek, can it be mine?

No, they're at my sides, trembling.

 

This soft, dry skin, that's his. That can only be his.

 

I open my eyes, and shit, two tears roll down my cheeks, he's gonnae kill me or worse, he's just gonnae laugh, he's gonnae laugh and walk past me, oh, _please_.

 

His face right before mine, it's not Spin face. It's him. His eyes open wide, glorious with sunlight and concern, so close, so very close to me. He's there, I can see him. I could touch him if my hands could move. I don't see the walls.

 

Where are the walls?

 

-”Jamie”.

 

His voice wraps me in black velvet, the way he knows I love it. His fingers, deftly, brush those two miserable tears away, and he kisses my brow, his lips halfway between a smile and a thousand words.

 

-”Don't worry” he says, and Let There be Light.

 

_Finally._

 

I didn't see the walls, but they've been there, allright, they've been there all along. I didn't see them because they weren't between us.  
They were all around.

 

Towers high and ditches deep. Archers at the ramparts, thickest walls and poisoned arrows, for sure, but with rooms inside, now, it would seem, at least for one failed priest and three fine women.

 

 

Finally.

 

 

I was expecting everything but this, this wonderful thing he just made, o _h, my love. My brave, bravest King of all._

 

 

 

 

 

His hand lingers on my shoulder and he goes to Maidie, staring at him with puzzled eyes. He whispers something to her too, and she smiles. She hands her the drawing - it's him again- and he praises her gently.

 

 

Taking the drawing sheet inside, he walks close to me again, and breathes something about us leaving tonight. I knew, but that's all right, it's all right now.

 

Because that look he has, as he walks inside the house in glowing light, if it doesn't mean hope, then I don't know what it means.

 

 

 

Finally, hope, finally, peace.

 

 

The Sun blesses the Earth. All angels sing.

 

 

 

_**All hail the King.** _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may ask now : how about the smut you promised ?  
> It's coming, dearies. It will be an epilogue, as I often add. 
> 
> As you may see, you had fifteen days instead of twenty (that was more of a working title really), but I still have one night to tell ! 
> 
>  
> 
> Stay tuned for last and hottest part.


	7. One night

 

 

**One night :**

 

 

I thought he'd prepare more.

  
I thought he'd plan and rehearse his comeback like the fucking Rolling Stones world tour. But it seems I've turned pretty shitty at seeing Malcolm coming, lately, eh?

Because he just doesn't.

 

He whispers his goodbyes to the weird Charlie's Angels team that is his family in a sweet, but firm voice, promising to phone and to write and actually being fucking _believed_. We get in the rental car, with extra luggage, like a fuckload of Maidie's drawings -there even is a pair for me, and those are the fucking best o' the lot lemme tell yae-, a few pictures of younger Malcolm Moira sneaked in my bag, God bless that woman, and a genuinely fucking nice shirt for him. "Bought it when I still hoped you'd be coming for Christmas five years ago" Karen said. Well, it's dark purple and tight fitted and suits him like fucking heaven. I'd smash his head in if he doesn't wear this once a month.  
  
The whole way back to London is as quiet as the way up, except it's even fucking better.

 

I can leave my hand on his thigh all journey long. I can laugh like a moron at funny shit on the radio and he doesn't even roll eyes. I can even sing along to fucking Coldplay to piss him off, and all he does is throw three empty coffee tumblers at my face. Fuck, he doesn't even shout at me once.

He does shout, yes, on the phone, ripping guts out of some cunt's ego with a wink in my direction, but when he hangs up, he just smiles and puts down the Blackberry on the dashboard with fake "et voilà! " theatrics I can't stop giggling at like a fucking retard.

I even get complete sentence answers to all my questions, including those about the job. “No, I'm not calling anyone, we just show up tomorrow eight thirty and get shit done.”

  
Okhay. I don't fucking recognize you anymore, but that's fine. That's fine. Malcolm Tucker died and regenerated like fucking Doctor Who, except it's the same face.

 

New fortress, new rules, okhay fine.

 

 

 

I have no idea how far the revamp goes, but I'm quite happy sofar.

 

Nope, I'm not. I'm fucking _delighted._

 

 

 

He doesn't prepare, he doesn't even plan anything. He keeps emails checked, gives terse phone calls and sends short messages. We arrive home around ten pm and he drops the Blackberry on the couch, helping me unpack, and at some point I think he's even humming some crap that was on the radio just before I cut the engine.

 

I'm a bit frightened, and I could slap myself, because I'm actually _frightened_ because I'm not seeing the walls. Will you ever be fucking satisfied, he'd tell me. Well, I'm not used to that, that's all. I'm used to the drawbridge and the closed doors, the high walls and deep ditches. I'm used to the fighting, the besieging and the calling. I have no fucking idea what to do with all that open space, all that fucking _peace_.

 

I don't see the walls, where are the walls? You'll fucking need them tomorrow, Malc, or your Spin Wars are gonnae break your lovely, slender neck.

 

I could speak up, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't deflect conversation. But he's there, in his bedroom, pushing his suitcase behind the wardrobe, a faint smile on his lips and that light blue sweater that doesn't look like he's ever met Evil Overlord of Spin Malcolm Tucker. He needs to sleep, and later on, put on some fucking weight. He'll need care, and he'll need time. But right now, I swear to God he's fucking gorgeous, and I may as well talk about the pending wars tomorrow.

 

I grab his wrist as he walks past me to the door, pulling him to me a wee bit. I wish I could have him swinging around in my arms, tango style, bend him backwards and kiss him like the Devil I am, but I am Jamie MacDonald, not Clark fucking Gable, so awkward pulling it is.

 

That does the trick anyways. He gives me one of those once-a-year-when-dead-drunk smiles, clear-blue eyes heavy-lidded, delicate hands on my shoulders, and that makes him actually look a wee bit _gay_. Fuck, I crave those. Push me from casual to maniac in five secs. Well it actually takes four to have me cupping his face and prying his mouth open, but whatever. I'm fucking _starving._

 

He likes it, I can feel that, because he lets me crush my hips against his, and if it'll take a lot more than that to get him hard, he lets me in, and that's a fucking incentive. I lick my way down to that jutting collarbone and stay there for a while, until he shivers and kisses my ear once or twice. I almost hear the trumpets of victory, then, and lift up that sweater, sliding my hands up his chest, already half mad with lust.

 

Ha. The fucking _fool_ I am.

 

He sighs, but not _that_ sigh. It's the deep breath that means no, thank you, not interested, and though it hurts my pride on countless levels, I've never had one time when I've turned that no into anything else. I look up in utter outrage, and he huffs a small laugh, kissing my lips sweetly, but far too short to let me hope. He gets a hold of my hands, then, and pushes them back at my sides. Upon one last, fucking _adorable_ smile, he steps back to leave the room right as he meant to.

 

-”Hey !” is all I can manage, panting and, I'm fucking sure, with glowing red cheeks.

He waits, poised and serene and I fucking hate him for having so much fucking power over his own body. Over _me_.

 

-”You said you'd make it up to me!”

 

His eyes glow for a while, and he nods, peaceful.

 

-”Yes. And I will.”

 

He leaves, then, throwing over his shoulder in a silken voice :

 

-”In my own time. “

 

He's fucking lucky I don't have anything heavy and pointy within reach to throw at his back.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

I thought it would happen the night we got home, but it didn't. He just laid down in bed, set the alarm for 7:00 and opened his arms a wee bit for me.

 

 

I thought it would happen the night after, but it didn't. I was sure, though. I could've bet a fucking round for a fucking whole Irish pub, Saint Patrick day, bring it on.

 

The day had been a victory march, you see.

 

The elevator doors slid behind his back at eight thirty sharp, and silence fell across the land. He duelled each one of their stares and made them all drop gazes on the floor, yes, _each and every one_ of these cunts. After half a minute of Worldess War One, he pointed his finger at Nicola, hissed something like “you, notepad, my office, now”, and he just walked on.

 

He walked the walk of cracking bones, his long black coat as a flag to all the venoms of this Earth. He walked, and as Ollie got up to follow him, he snapped his fingers, and the young shark sat back down, as if he got shot in the knees. I literally exulted.

 

I noticed their looks at me had changed, and it took a few hours to dig out why.

Oh of course. He died in my arms on the third day of nightmares past. He slid his hands around me and whispered his last words in my ear, his eyes for me alone. _Of course_. They know, now. They all know.

 

I am the Spider's lover.

 

I sneered at them, showing teeth and clenching fists, daring them to utter a word. Go on, say something with “gay” in it. Say anything with any fucking synonym of “gay” in it. Make my fucking day.

No one did. I head Terry giggle like the insipid piece of nothing she was, when Malcolm put a hand on my arm to show me the TV screen, that's all.

 

Victory march, all along.

 

Malcolm made every single business at hand slide back into his grasp in four hours and a half. When Sam, beaming pride, brought him his 4 o'clock expresso, he had all the meaningful drafts, notes and files produced in Number Ten those two last weeks spread on his desk for him to inspect.

 

The King was back, claiming his throne, the very breath of him washing away the traces of his absence. And if some fool tried his luck at testing him, taking one extra minute to get the job done or not speaking the complete exact line he had to speak, well, he got enough fire and rage coming to tell stories about for years to come. Malcolm Tucker left the building around seven pm, followed by the stench of burning human skin.

 

 

Victory march, I said.

 

So, after shower, when he slid between the sheets, I grabbed his waist and smiled, thinking for sure that night was the night. But all I got was that sigh again.

 

I cursed at the evening sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

I thought it would happen the week after, when, triumphant, he clapped his agenda shut after the last election planning meeting, Julius smiling fondly at the very likely success of his schemes. He had spent seven days spinning webs of lies, with more cruelty and genius I even thought possible, even for him. I saw him crushing throats, I saw him branding flesh. Yet I never once saw one stone, one fence betw

een us. The walls were all around. He was even able to wreck the very life of some distant cunt on the phone _while_ letting me kiss his fucking neck. Fucking amazing.

 

His plans crushed the careers of two press officers and one Mail journalist, ruined the marriage of one Ministry PA and made Terry cry twice. The walls I couldn't see sure were back there, high and thick and fucking terrifying. Seemed I was the only one who actually couldn't see a thing. Everyone else had their blood spattered on those stones like a slaughter house portrait gallery.

 

 

Julius bought us dinner, in a place so fucking fancy I had to _ask_ what to do with those four fucking forks. The bald twat offered champagne and Malcolm accepted. He drank five glasses, laughed sweetly at Julius praise, and there, I thought that night was the night.

 

But there again, he left me in our bed, stone hard and short-winded, after a few kisses and one shift of his hips. I didn't even bother to curse anything, neither him, nor any kind of evening sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought it would happen so many times.

 

And now it is happening, truth be told, I wasn't even thinking about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Brand new, freshly elected Prime Minister Adam Lang, Malcolm's horse, bathing in the glowing light of his flawless victory, officially invited us at the Labour Party Conference, oh, clever, as if we wouldn't have come otherwise, you fucking twat.

 

Thing is, to get us there one friday night after work, the fucking twat sent a fucking _limo_ to Malcolm's flat.

 

 

 

Well, not exactly the ten yards long american style shit, but, you see, some huge Mercedes with two fucking leather bench seats facing each-other at the back, a minibar and nightclub sound system. I nearly jumped in excitement, while Malcolm face-palmed and hissed something about that really being a solution to healthcare deficit.

 

-”Oh, fuck off, killjoy!” I said, clapping his back. “That fucking masquerade of death-boring Labour drags is in fucking _Manchester_. You can take the fucking train wi' the middle-class cunts if yae like, but I'm giving that lass a go!”

 

He scowled at me, very clear about me being a retarded child, but went to pack a light suitcase for two anyways, snarling something about us being middle-class, no matter what.

 

Well, he wasn't wrong. I _did_ ask what to do with the four forks.

But fuck, I still loved that car.

 

 

We got in, 10 pm, travelling light, still in our worksuits except for the jackets, and he went on checking his Blackberry, while I strongly intended to unleash hell.

 

 

As soon as the wood panel between the driver and us slid shut, I fucking raided the minibar, proudly making up innovative cocktails yet to be named, thirty percent of them landing on the floor carpet. He sighed, rubbing his temple, and refused the cups I offered him with a grunt, shooing my hand away as if it was an insect.

 

After seven and a half cocktails, he told me to leave those bottles alone and stay quiet for a while. He said I was giving him a headache.

 

I laughed.

He didn't.

 

I gulped down my latest creation and sat still for a minute.

 

Well, soon enough, I started pushing every fucking button of the sound system, browsing through the endless list of MP3 they got stored in that shit. After thirty-nine art-house tests, from heavy metal to fucking electro-house, the whole car was _vibrating_ , sending Malcolm shrieking in pain against the back of his seat, threatening to sew my hands to my own arse if I didn't turn that crap down.

 

I laughed.

He didn't.

 

I turned the music down.

 

 

 

After one hour and a half, the minibar nearly drained of every shred of fun it could offer, and the music settled to classic jazz, I behaved a wee bit. I said something clever about Reeder at his lonely flat, binging on cookie dough ice cream to drown his broken heart, shattered by not being invited at the Conference, and the unrepentant murder of every idea the young twat dared to speak of since Malcolm's comeback from the grave. He seemed to picture that quite well, for I thereby earned one of his first smiles of the day. I added sound effects and mime, until he really _laughed,_ and set his phone aside. Muted. _Fuck, yes._

 

The highway headlights were dancing around the windows, and the moon was like a high Cheshire cat sneer behind us. Championed by his smile, I winked and made up one last cocktail, something fucking strong. I offered it to him, only this time, adding my top-grade endearing voice.

 

-”C'mon, Malc. It's your victory. Your horse wins. You're the most bankable man in Government again. King of my Castle for years to come, behold. You could at least celebrate, eh?”

 

 

Just then, at “King of my Castle”, maybe, something softened on his face. He had one long look for some city lights, out there, and turned back to me with those perfect winter sky eyes. Something happened, right there, when his hand came to take the cup and brushed my fingers, as if he did like the sound of my voice, or something I said, and it was the last drop needed to tip the scales.

 

Something happened, and I knew that was it.

_Tonight._

 

Now is the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He takes one gulp of the drink, far too much for the casual sip, and no doubt is left alive. He is steadying himself. He's giving himself a push. I never could truly understand why it's so hard for him to let go.

I thought I did it wrong for a while, but I know I do it just the way he likes. He trusts me, I know he does, he fucking rebuilt a Citadel for both of us, after red, after death. He said the words, he won the war. He is mine, down to the last fragment of his soul.

 

Then why? Why does he need that drink, and, I guess, the other one after that.

 

I guess he's just not into it. He just does it for me. Because he knows I love it. I _need_ it. That's his reward in that game, I suppose. To give me something I need. To be something I need, replacing all my addictions from days long lost by everything he is.

 

To be booze, to be coke to me.

 

To be God to me.

 

He gets to be the beginning and the end of my whole universe, and I get, well. _That_ part of him. It's worth, you see, a thousand years and a thousand miles. Wars and corpses, silent nights and broken glass. It's heaven gates opened, it's fucking _magnificent_.

 

He drains his cup and sets it aside. He spares one side glance at the windows and I follow his eyes. We just passed Banbury. I know he's calculating the time left to Manchester, and I know it's just enough for his standards. I know he is calculating what, and where, and how, and I am hanging onto the corner of his lips. I don't think I've ever been quieter in all my life.

 

After one minute or two, he looks back at me and gives me _that_ smile, with those heavy-lidded eyes again.

 

Triumphant, I make a move to get up, and he raises a hand, shaking his head ever so slightly. I sit back, confused, devouring him with half-crazed eyes. He drops his frozen stare to somewhere between our shoes, flustered, and lets out a brief sigh. His hands go to his collar and slowly undo the knot of his tie. He makes it slide along his neck, and, with one of those insane lopsided smiles, he drops it on my knee. I let out half a whimper I'll be ashamed of all my life, and his eyes meet mine, just long enough to tell me not to move.

 

He keeps avoiding my stare as his spiderlegs fingers work through the buttons of his pale shirt, in an agonizingly slow dance of elegance. Inch after inch, he silently reveals pale fields of skin, and my throat goes dry. It's like I'm seeing him for the first time. Fuck, it's been seven years, I know his skin by heart now, so why am I gripping the leather seat that hard?

 

Once it's all open, he shrugs the shirt away, picks it up between two long thin fingers and, again, drops it on my lap. It smells like his after shave and the office.

 

I jump up. One glance commands me back down.

 

-”Malc...

 

-”Shht.

 

 

 

He lets his fingers do the same dance for his belt, and kicks away shoes and socks with so little care I guess the drink has begun to kick in. Once he's only in his dark grey pants, his eyes meet mine for good, and there's a scorching sun in those winter skies, so intense I fear I'll go psycho if I don't touch him right now. He sees that, but before he has mercy on me, he gestures for one more drink, which I give him with trembling hands and he kills in one gulp.

The highway lights paint his skin in gold, by quick, short-lived brush strokes. Every now and then, one red sign line lingers on his cheek, crawls down his shoulder and disappears on the leather. The luxury car slides on the M40 with humming songs, covered by Southern style blues. It's one of those night of fire and devils, a black fabric made of wonders and nightmares.

 

He gracefully moves down and lays on his bench seat where darkness and gold pay a fucking tribute to his silhouette, extending an arm to me. Beckoning, just a wee bit, with those maddening fingers.

 

-”Come.” he whispers.

 

 

I'm on him within seconds.

 

My lips crashland into the curve of his neck, and I don't even think I'm kissing.

 

I am devouring.

 

I'm eating him alive, frenetic, and he cries out in surprise. I wish I could calm down, Malcolm, luv, but you shouldn't have made that fucking _show_. You know you shouldn't have.

 

His skin is feverish, white velvet over lean muscles, and the highway lights are having fun with his silver hair. His hands loosen my tie, and I'm not making it easy, because I think I'm trying to touch him everywhere at once. I find his hips and lift them up to me. I'm rock-hard, he feels it through the fabric of our pants, and the sound he makes writes a whole book of promises.

 

His fingers undo my shirt, and move around my ribs, find my shoulder blades, scratch them to blood. I hear some kind of wild howl, and I gather it's mine. I lick his lips open, and he lets me in, his pink wet tongue playing with mine until my hands on his hips become violent, rubbing him against me, digging holes in his fragile, pale flesh. My weight crushes him on the bench, and after three brutal thrusts of my hips, somewhere in his lower back his gristles crack.

 

At some point he tenses and breaks the kiss, brow knitted, eyes clouded.

 

-”Jamie” he calls, and I hear his voice from so far away it scares me.

 

I freeze, blink twice, and take the time to read his face. Oh, _fuck_.

 

It takes fucking willpower to dislodge my fingers, one by one, from his skin. Each one of them left a angry purple mark on his hips. He stirs, spine grinding in nasty sounds. Fuck, I was _breaking_ him.

 

_Will I ever fucking learn?_

 

-”Malc, I'm sorry, I...”

 

One of his hands finds my hair, stroking it away from my eyes, and he kisses the side of my mouth, deliberately slow.

 

-” It's allright”, he breathes. “I'm not fucking porcelain. Just... be gentle”

 

 

 

The other hand, as a sign of forgiveness, unzips my pants, slides in, and gives my crotch one long, firm stroke through my briefs. I feel the wet spot pressed against me, and I need to find back some shreds of self control, or I'll be not only violent, but also fucking _disappointing_.

 

I breathe in, count to three, and softly remove the rest of his clothes. I pause after each, count to three, kiss his hipbones, count to three. I stroke his thighs, taking time to marvel, for the umpteenth time, at how soft they are. Above all on the inside. There's skin so thin, there, so frail I fear I'll break it every time. He shivers and lets out a breathy cry. He's only half stiff, but it's fine. I know what he needs.

What _I_ need.

 

I strip until I drop my briefs on his lap, and with a snort he brushes them away. I lay back down, not on him this time, but right next to him, pressing him against the back of the bench seat. My hands worship his thin chest, thumbs rubbing his nipples for a while, and I give his mouth a proper kiss, nice and slow, sliding to his jawline and nibbling at that delicacy of a neck. He positively growls, there, and from the curve of his hips I know I'm good. I find his ear, circle it with sloppy kisses.

 

-”Malcolm” I call. Pointlessly I know, but he loves it.

 

His eyes roll back and close. He bends his head backwards, offering his throat. My left hand crawls up there, and my fingers enclose it, carefully, just pressing hard enough to speak about trust, and control. I feel under my palm his adam's apple bobbing up and down a few times, and when I kiss him again, he's wild, burning, biting my lips, pushing me, urging me.

 

-”Hold onto me” I breathe, and his arms crawl around my shoulders, wrapping me into him.

 

I gently bite his ear and he cries out, something delicate, almost effeminate, and I swear to God it drives me crazy with lust.

Brushes of gold shine like fire. Crying blues about lost love. His parted lips against leather. My hand sending shivers through his slender thighs. I grab one of his knees, gently, and pull it to me a little, while I sigh more that speak my prayers into his ear.

 

-”Open up for me, Malcolm.”

 

I don't know who that throaty voice is, but it's definitely not mine. This is the voice of a madman. Someone lost in the dark, long ago.

 

He parts his legs, arches his back, and I know that lost fool is never to be found.

I crawl between his knees, as a pilgrim crawls to the end of his journey. His grip on me tightens, pulling me down, but I hold my ground, count to three, kiss his brow. His eyes look for mine, then, and God, they could put the moon to shame. I make a show of licking two of my fingers, my crazed eyes fixed on his, and he gives a low groan. He looks dazed, and maybe a bit drunk. Well, he still isn't as lost as I am. One of his hands leave my shoulders to dive into his jacket, discarded on the seat. When it comes back, it goes straight to the hand I'm licking, pressing something in it.

 

A small tube.

 _Oh_.

 

 

The fool I've been, thinking he'd ever stop planning every fucking thread of possibilities.

 

I tear the tube open with my teeth and squeeze it until my fingers are coated. He tries to get up, but my hand on his throat keeps him down. He doesn't seem to mind a lot. He sinks back in the couch, docile, and leaves command on my side. It's me who dives towards him, biting his neck again to draw his attention away from my fingers' rough, sliding entrance. He hisses and squirms, but not for long.

 

I know what he needs.

I crook my fingers, moving them in circles until he shouts, his hands darting to my hair, pulling me to the curve of his neck, painted gold, painted red.

I move my hand, choosing something slow, breathing into his wet, burning ear, staring in awe at the night lights playing with his eyelashes.

 

-”Malcolm. My Malcolm”.

 

His eyes roll back again and I know I'm good. He's hard, really hard now, and a thin drop of sweat slides to his temple. I change rhythm, angling my fingers and his cries turn into pleas. His hips jerk in pliant moves, following my lead on that dark leather dancefloor.

He clings on me, awaiting, depending. Every inch of his white skin surrendered to me. The sheer power of it all makes turns my mind to liquid fire.

 

Adding a third, and pushing deeper, I can have him trembling, one cry for each one of my moves, now, and I know he's ready for me.

 

-”Say it.” I sigh against his mouth. “Say you're mine”.

 

His gaze of stained glass locks with mine, the last stitch of his pride barely holding. My hand on his throat tightens for one second, sending a shudder down his spine, taming his eyes.

 

-”Malcolm. Do as I say.”

 

He hesitates, but I know that spot inside him by heart, and he doesn't stand a chance. Two more moves and his pupils explode, his mouth open against mine and he pours words in it, like milk and honey into my soul.

 

-”Oh, God, _yes_ , I am yours, Jamie. I am.. _**Ah**_!”

 

Between a gasp and a dizzy stare, I have withdrawn my hand, angled myself and thrusted, filling him, stretching him, cutting his breath into bits. He comes undone, yielding, gripping my back and holding on, as if letting go would mean falling to his death. I start moving, pulling out, and pushing back in, having him cry out again. He would even be loud, I think, if he had some breath left.

 

My hand can leave his neck because it's not needed anymore. He's mine. He won't even squirm.

 

 

Again, I choose something slow, count to three, kiss his ear, count to three. Maybe because controlling him drives me mad, maybe because that fire in my guts tells me I won't be long.

 

Soon enough, though, his grip urges me on, and I quicken my rhythm, following for a while the highway gold flashing on our skins. Between his half-closed lids I barely see his eyes, but I see darkness, I see devils and nightmares, that's all I want to know. His voice is broken, but there's one small cry for each one of my thrusts again, only, lower. I drink the sight of him, raw and unleashed, without a single shred of control, because, you see, it never lasts.

 

His hips lift up and down to meet my pace, and it won't be long, now. There's not much I can do against it, because there's someone moaning senselessly, here, and I think it's me.

 

I hear nothing but his breathing, and the sound of his skin making the leather creak. I hear nothing but his voice, and this is my downfall. In between cries I hear words, and those words will send the whole universe bursting into light.

 

-”Jamie. “ he says, hoarse and shattered.

 

I don't think I can control my own moves anymore. My hand encircles his cock and strokes him, maybe a bit rough, I don't know, really. But he shudders, so I know I'm good. He's hard and pulsing and wet, and _God_ , he's defeated, he's almost done.

My lips hover above his, drinking his words, demanding more, wanting booze, wanting coke. And more he does give, oh, my Malcolm.

 

-”Jamie, _please_! Jamie, - _ah_ \- I love you, I... **Jamie!**

 

 

I feel burning liquid burst into my hand, but that's not what brings me down. What does, is that he doesn't stop crying out after that, clenching around me, shuddering so violently, God I fear he'd break. It's that even when I freeze, fascinated, he still moves, impaling himself on me a few more times, calling my name again, shaking so madly he may be seizing, and it never, ever lasted so _long_.

 

I don't think he ever came so _hard_ in all our years, and this is the end of me. The sun comes in, blinding me, erasing the lines of reality, and everything goes white.

 

He holds onto me until the end.

 

 

 

 

When I come back from oblivion, the car hums quietly, and the blues has come back. Some old man's voice sings about the shores of Mississippi. Malcolm is beneath me, his breath wheezing a bit, but looking quiet, Courtesan gaze, Mona Lisa smile.

 

 

 

I pull out and he winces. God, he'll be sore for a few days.

I lay down next to him, flinching. So will I.

 

He looks like he's still struggling with his senses, and I'm sure, now. It _was_ that good. Beaming pride, I cup his chin, lift it up and kiss him, storybook style. He leans in, pliant and warm. Yes. He's still high. I can push my luck for a while.

-”I'm fucking good, eh?” I gloat, one finger sliding up his cheek.

 

-”Yes.” he breathes, and do I see a fucking _blush_?

Could be the lights, could be, but one thing's for sure, that new fortress of his makes the shagging fucking better. He doesn't have to kick me out behind the walls minutes after he's done, and I can bathe in the bliss of a moment longer with vulnerable, submissive, and fucking gorgeous post-sex Malcolm.

 

You think I'm overreacting? Just look at that.

 

I cup his face firmly, my eyes searching his, and I state :

 

-”I love you, Malcolm. I'm not letting go of yae. Never.”

 

His magnificent eyes dart to the side, come back to me and positively shine.

-”I never said I wanted you to” he sighs, his hand finding mine on his cheek and having our fingers entwined.

 

How's that?

Oh, and wait.

 

 

I kiss him again, and he opens wide, wanting to please, crawling up to me. Distracting him, I reach out to the minibar door unnoticed, pull out a pair of ice cubes and hold them steady in my hand while I let it slide along his back.

He jumps up in a shaky “Oi!”, dodging my hand by pressing himself against the back of the bench seat, and you know what? He laughs. He's fucking almost _giggling_. Look at him, the Number Ten Nightmare. Look at him, the Dreadful Spider.

 

Strange, he looks so young, sometimes. God, how I love him.

 

 

 

I lasts for twenty more minutes, maybe, where I can effortlessly pull out sweet words from him, massage his back and hearing him purr. I even push it up to have him serving me a drink, two vodka, one gin, thank you Malcolm. Over here, now.

 

He just smiles and looks down at me in quiet adoration.

 

 

Fuck, if I've been happier, I don't fucking remember it.

 

 

Well, it had to happen, every holiday has an end, every heaven a closing time. At some point, his dazed eyes scan the car, and spot tissues between our seats. He picks up a few and cleans us a bit, because I think that's the main reason he's not into it. Pushing them in a small bin under the minibar, he has a look for the highway signs. Manchester, 45 miles.

 

-”We should get dressed” he voices gently.

 

Still not ordering me, but the fun is bloody well over.

 

 

 

 

We find back our clothes, and make a quick work of erasing the traces of our sins. I see the computations come back in his eyes, washing away the sweet glow of Docile Malcolm. It breaks my heart again, but, eh, he's Malcolm Tucker, not a fucking Disney Prince. I fell in love with him when he reeked of blood and burning corpses.

 

He has everything checked in ten minutes, he even thinks about opening the window for a change of air. When he picks up his phone, every shred of what happened is gone on his face, and it annoys me to no end, because I'm still sensing warm fuzzy waves of pleasure and fucking _feeling_ in my stomach.

 

 

Well I'll never be him. That's good, he doesn't need another piece of himself.

 

He needs _me_.

 

 

 

 

When we arrive at the hotel, he gets out of the car, graceful as a fucking rockstar, but I've seen that wince, and I hear triumph.

 

 

When we open the doors of our adjoining rooms, he whispers that Sam made sure they communicate through bathrooms, and his face is blank, but I've seen that smile, and I hear bliss.

 

 

When we both stand on his balcony, and he points at me the main buildings of the city, his voice is clear, but I've felt that hand on my arm, and I hear angels sing.

 

To the end of time, high walls and ditches deep.

 

 

 

_**All Hail the Kings.** _

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There goes the smut !  
> And, with that, the final end of the fic. Nope, no more. Finished.  
> I hope you liked the rollercoaster between (spooky) angst and (shameless) fluff, and I'll see you guys around the next time I've got a brilliant sickbed idea. 
> 
> My untainted love to you all !
> 
> Alex.


End file.
